


Orbit

by HenryMercury



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Anal Sex, Asexual Character, Awkward Sexual Situations, Coming Out, Consent Issues, Detention, Explicit Consent, Fist Fights, Gardens & Gardening, Homophobia, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Oral Sex, Rimming, Slow Burn, ace neville, revenge porn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-28
Updated: 2018-04-28
Packaged: 2019-04-04 00:47:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 52,460
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14008494
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HenryMercury/pseuds/HenryMercury
Summary: "The classical problem of celestial mechanics, perhaps of all Newtonian mechanics, involves the motion of one body about another under the influence of their mutual gravitation."*They don't like each other. They're not friends. There's not even a ceasefire of any sort because they're fighting as much as ever—but there's definitely something different about it. An added layer of self-awareness they don't dare identify, but which colours everyScared, Potter?andDo your worst; eachYou wouldn't dareandThen prove it.





	1. The Two-Body Problem

**Author's Note:**

> **For prompt #33:** 8th year - McGonagall has had enough and put some sort of special enchantments on the castle that prevent anyone doing anything with another person (sex/fighting/etc) without the other person's consent. Surprisingly Harry and Draco can still pummel and hex each other. People all over the place are angry because they can't have sex the way they had been, and when Harry and Draco (finally) get together, things get...interesting.  
>  **Extra Information:** Humor, Romione, pining, badass!McGonagall, Harry and Draco duelling  
>  **Squicks/dislikes:** demonizing characters, unequal power dynamics  
>  **Maximum Rating:** Explicit
> 
> * Please be warned that this fic contains some noncon-related content. This content does not include physical assaults. Nor is it between Harry and Draco.
> 
> * Big thanks to LowerEastSide and NotTonightJosephine for their beta work! Thanks to them both and the mods for the patience it took to see me to the end of this.
> 
>   
> **"The classical problem of celestial mechanics, perhaps of all Newtonian mechanics, involves the motion of one body about another under the influence of their mutual gravitation."**  
>  George W Collins II, _The Foundations of Celestial Mechanics_ (Pachart, 2004) 71. 

"Is it just me, or does it feel a bit like Umbridge is back?" says Ron, when Headmistress McGonagall has finished explaining her new decree. " _Girls and boys can't be within six inches of each other_ and all that?"

Hermione aims a deep frown at him. "No. Because it's completely different. These charms don't prevent people from doing things entirely, they just require them to get express consent before they do. Honestly, it _shouldn't_ even mean a change in behaviour."

Harry is still gathering his thoughts on this. Sex is obviously one focus of McGonagall's new rule, and it's the one that's causing the most muttering across the Great Hall at present—but there's more to it than that. Last week, Greg Goyle was found body-bound with bruised ribs out near the broom shed. In the first week of term, Pansy Parkinson was in the hospital wing for several days after a group of fifth year girls took turns throwing hexes at her face, and right after that Draco Malfoy was hit with the edge of a nasty curse. Malfoy has been trying so hard to be invisible since eighth year began that even Harry has barely seen him—and Harry's grown up _just_ enough by now to admit to himself that yeah, he has been looking, and it's not just because he thinks Malfoy's up to something evil.

Because he doesn't think that anymore. The only thing Malfoy's up to is hiding from all the students walking the halls with their trauma stuffed into bottles that are liable to shatter at any moment. The war is over—but people are still hurting, still hurting one another.

 _The charms will stifle any spells cast at other students, or physical contact with intent to which the other student has not given consent._ That's what McGonagall said. If she could do this, Harry wonders, why on earth hasn't it been done before?

Admittedly, the mounting chatter surrounding him offers an explanation. It can't have been easy to get the necessary permission.

"But it will change things, though," Ron's telling Hermione. "If we want to do—basically _anything_ , we have to stop and ask. What if I want to hold your hand, but we're in the middle of a conversation, or you're busy reading a book and don't want to be interrupted? Bloody inconvenient, that is."

"Well we'll just have to work around things like that. It's a small price to pay." Hermione leans closer to Ron, but to be heard over the din she has to speak loud enough that Harry, unfortunately, can also hear. "Besides," she says, "I think it's very sexy. _Asking_ for what you want. _Telling_ someone how much you want it. For instance: after we leave the hall I want you to kiss me. Push me up against a wall so I can feel the whole of your body pressing into me while you do it. We'll pick a corridor that's deserted—but there's always the chance someone will catch us, isn't there? And I won't care if they do, because I just really, _really_ want you to kiss me."

Ron's ears have gone pink, and Harry can see the flush on his neck creeping downwards where his collar is open and his tie is pushed almost below the neckline of his jumper.

"And when exactly are you planning on us leaving?" asks Ron, voice squeaky.

Harry wishes fervently that he was deaf.

"Oh, not for a while yet," Hermione replies happily. "I've been absolutely _craving_ croissants, and you know they only bring out the pastries after the first lot of dishes are gone. Why, has me telling you what I want us to do had some sort of effect on you? I thought it was just an inconvenience?"

"Alright, alright," Ron concedes. "Maybe it can be kind of hot, too."

"I'm glad we're in agreement." Hermione says, then returns her focus to her scrambled eggs.

Harry is careful to stay behind for an extra several minutes while the two of them depart from breakfast together, and makes his way back to the Gryffindor common room via only the busiest routes.

*

Harry hasn't been doing well in his classes in the month and a half he's been back at Hogwarts. He knows he should be doing better, now that he's not trying to fight Voldemort all the time, but it's hard to go from survival to _normal life_ when you've honestly never had any experience with normality. The Dursleys did their level best to make sure Harry knew he was abnormal, and once he found out he was The Boy Who Lived his life hardly got any less unusual.

So here he is, staring at the blank parchment that's meant to be his Transfiguration essay, completely unable to will the homework into existence. After all, what harm can it do if he doesn't turn it in? Sure, McGonagall will be disappointed—but Harry can weather that well enough and besides, the professor has made it clear she's their teacher, not their personal coach. Returning eighth years are adults, responsible for their own learning.

Harry's not sure what good writing twenty inches on the potential dangers of animate-to-inanimate reversal spells will do him in the long run. It sounds like the kind of subject most useful to... Healers, probably? And Harry isn't even taking Potions Extension, so it's not like he's going to become one of those. He doesn't love knowledge for knowledge's sake the way Hermione does; Harry needs to know that what he's doing is likely to be important somehow, to him or to someone else.

What Harry always used to do when he was neglecting to study or sleep was keep track of Malfoy, so that's what he's doing again. It's familiar. Grounding. It lets him orbit something, someone, instead of floating off into space alone.

Harry's never known Malfoy to visit the greenhouses, but that's where he finds him this afternoon. Or, well, where he follows him to; Harry spots him lurking near the castle doors, waiting for a large gaggle of Ravenclaw-Gryffindor second-years to enter before slipping out. Harry lurks a little on his way out, too, because he just can't risk being waylaid by kids who want to ask him things or get autographs, or call his name so that Malfoy hears and gets away.

The greenhouse Malfoy goes for is empty except for Professor Sprout. The door starts falling shut behind him so slowly that Harry can hear the first snippet of a conversation:

"Draco," Professor Sprout says, not entirely _sweetly_ but certainly with a hint of exasperated affection.

"Pomona," Malfoy replies, pulling the gardening gloves he's extracted from his robe pocket smoothly on.

The exchange is disturbingly familiar, as if Malfoy's presence here is commonplace, and Professor Sprout turns back to her work without any further comment.

The greenhouse door finishes closing, muting the sounds from inside. Harry isn't ready to be done yet, though. He pushes the door back open and is standing there, in the doorway, before he's sure what he's doing.

"Mr Potter?" Professor Sprout greets him, this time sounding quite surprised. "I wasn't aware you were coming."

"Harry, please," Harry answers, because for some reason it's painfully awkward to be called by his last name when _Malfoy_ is on a first-name basis with the Professor.

"Yes, I suppose you boys are grown up now," Sprout sighs. "You're welcome to call me Pomona, if you'd like."

"Thanks," Harry grins, "Pomona."

There's a sharp clatter as Malfoy's trowel meets something hard.

"Why are you here, Potter?" he asks, sharply and irritably but without actually turning around to face Harry. "You'll forgive me if I have trouble believing you actually intend to _garden_."

"Why else would I come to a greenhouse, Malfoy?" Harry stands his ground, dares Malfoy to _say it_ if he's going to accuse Harry of stalking him. Harry may have come to recognise some of his former behaviour for the obsession it was, and to see much the same thing in most of what Malfoy has ever done to him—but neither of them have ever outwardly acknowledged their mutual... fixation. They'll deny it, blame it on delusion or on each other. It's just what they do, and it keeps the pattern from changing.

Everything's different now, and Harry sort of wishes that at least this one thing could be consistent, predictable.

"I've never understood most of what you do, Potter," Malfoy sneers, "but perhaps you're here specially to irritate me. To toss dirt in my eyes. Would you enjoy that? Some of your Gryffindor friends certainly did when they barged in here on Tuesday."

Harry is about to address the first part of Malfoy's statement, but cuts the words at the last minute. "Who?" he demands instead. "Who did that?" He hasn't heard anything about it in the common room, but not everyone is reckless enough to gloat about the ways they've bullied other students. Harry doesn't want to believe any of his mates would do this—but the truth is, all of them have gone through much worse than a spray of soil, and some of them have real reasons to believe Malfoy deserved worse than the Wizengamot gave him, real reasons to want to see justice done themselves.

"Bergman. Lau. Holmes—Fiona, not Eldritch," Malfoy rattles off, then adds uncharitably: "and that block-shaped first-year with the awful birthmark on her cheek."

Harry knows the Gryffindors Malfoy's talking about, but he's relieved to note that none of them are really his friends; they're not in his year, he's never played Quidditch with any of them, and they weren't part of DA, either. It's a stupid thing to feel, because they've still done whatever they've done, but Harry sort of... doesn't want to have to figure out what to do about his friends joining in on the Slytherin-bashing trend that's become a fair few people's post-war coping strategy.

"It's good that that won't work anymore," he says firmly. "Thanks to McGonagall's charms."

Draco rolls his eyes, but Harry's ninety percent sure the disdainful gesture is covering real gratefulness.

"I may not much _enjoy_ my battles of late, Potter, but I can fight them for myself. Merlin, I daresay it'd be refreshing to have the chance to, after being alternately sheltered and manipulated. Perhaps you'll even understand that if you think hard enough about it."

Harry's really _not_ as dense as people—especially Malfoy—often decide he is, but he'll keep that quiet if it'll put Malfoy's guard down around him even slightly.

He thinks about Dumbledore, and everything in Harry's life carefully orchestrated to produce one result. The Dursleys, the rewards he'd get for facing down Voldemort as a child, the increasingly obvious ways in which Dumbledore had asked him to fight, to die. He thinks of Malfoy shivering atop the Astronomy tower, being not stopped but forced to make a terrible choice. Thinks of Snape, who was kept at hand for such tasks as killing his old friend, the truest believer in his own decent character. Dumbledore gave of himself too, of course—but that was a decision made, not a direction followed.

"Have the spells worked yet?" Harry asks, instead of saying anything like _I understand already what it's like to be shaped your whole life for something horrible_. Malfoy is still _Malfoy_. He isn't nice. He may have been born into disadvantage in that respect, but he's never made much of an effort to change his character for the better.

" _How_ have you not tested them yet?" Draco is incredulous. "That's the first thing everyone did. Do you not actually have friends after all, or was it too unthinkable for the Saviour to subject anyone to so much as a pinch, or vice versa?"

Harry is vaguely aware that Pomona is moving about the greenhouse, floating stacks of pots and potion vials from the corner to a freshly turned garden bed.

"Everyone was, er, preoccupied, at breakfast. And then they all had Potions or Divination to go to and it was just me in the eighth year dorms," he explains.

"So what you're saying is that you're too much of a loner. Merlin."

"Says the man who's holed himself up in a greenhouse to get away from people."

"Excuse _you_ ," Draco argues. "Quite rude of you to ignore Pomona that way."

Harry hears Pomona snort amusedly, confirming that she can hear them from where she's working several yards away, and has been listening.

"Besides," Malfoy continues, "you are here in the very same greenhouse. By your own measure you must be hiding too."

Harry shrugs. More seeking than hiding, he thinks, but certainly won't admit. The thing is, they're both supposed to be seekers. It's unlike Malfoy to act this way. Like he doesn't care. He's _always_ cared, usually far too much and about all the wrong things.

"Why don't you prove to me that the charms work, then?" Harry he says, the challenge a poor mask for his adjustment of the subject.

"What, by tossing dirt at you?"

"Yeah, do that," says Harry, because that sounds like a better test than actually coming to blows. Probably.

Malfoy gathers soil in his gloved hands with smooth movements, and Harry spends a second feeling vaguely unsettled by the way they've been talking almost civilly, without any sort of _real_ viciousness, and the way Malfoy's actually now doing as Harry's asked.

As he's—

He realises his mistake—his stupid, fucking obvious mistake—as Malfoy draws his hand back and throws.

The dirt hits his chest like a dry brown snowball, some of it clinging to the wool of his jumper. He brushes it off, and then aims a quick _Scourgify_ at himself.

He glares at Malfoy, because he can't very well glare at himself.

Malfoy meets his eyes and then bursts out laughing. It's... disconcerting.

"Thanks, Potter. Really," he says, wiping his eyes awkwardly with his forearm, "for that chance to enjoy one of life's little pleasures again."

Harry lunges for the flowerbed Malfoy's been digging up and gathers dirt of his own. He aims it at Malfoy. It flies towards his face, and Harry winces even though he knows it shouldn't hit its target. Despite the git asking for it, he hasn't _actually asked for it_. It halts just before it makes contact with Malfoy's skin, and falls away.

Malfoy looks _enraged_. Harry hadn't realised until now how much he's been missing that, after Malfoy's ghostly demeanour so far this year, the glimpses of desperation he'd caught during the war, the wounded-animal aggression of sixth year. It would have shocked his younger self to know that Harry would _ever_ think of his childhood feud with Malfoy as a cornerstone of the _good old days_ , but it's not that shocking now. It's more... nostalgic, than anything else.

" _Really_ , Potter? You'd attack me, just like those other wretched housemates of yours? What makes it different when you do it, hmm? The Saviour can get away with anything?" Malfoy sneers, but the flatness is gone from his eyes, the dull grey turned bright and glinting like a freshly sharpened knife.

Harry reaches for another handful of dirt. "That's not why, but it _is_ different. You know it is."

There's no way to express _how_ it's different when Harry fights with Malfoy that doesn't sound pretty terrible, Harry thinks, but in essence the distinction is that the others don't _know_ Malfoy. They haven't gone back and forth with him for years like Harry has. They haven't grown up in resistance to one another, balanced by their mutual momentum.

It's what Harry's been lacking lately, that balance.

Malfoy doesn't disagree with him, which is rare and definitely significant. Instead, Malfoy rips off the glove on his wand hand, pulls his wand from his pocket and stabs it towards Harry.

"Are you _trying_ to get yourself cursed?" he sneers. "Do you _want_ to end up a human bat bogey?"

 _Bat bogey_ threats. There's the nostalgia again. Harry feels a bit mental, but for once it's an alright sort of mental.

"I'd like to see you try."

*

They end up in the hospital wing, because although Pomona is apparently comfortable enough letting their little duel run its course while she sorts out the herbs, she does insist on clearing the scratches and scrapes with Madam Pomfrey before healing, allegedly to ensure no contaminants from the greenhouse have made their way into them. Privately Harry thinks the whole thing is more about teaching them a lesson, as they're escorted back into the castle and through corridors full of curious students. Madam Pomfrey's fierce scolding is almost as frightening as McGonagall's intensive lack of comment.

Hermione, of course, is engaged in a characteristic juggling act, both disappointed and academically fascinated.

"You might as well be a couple of first-years," she huffs judgementally. "Although, for once I actually wish I'd been there to see it. Unless there's a flaw in the charm work, which—" she spares a glance for McGonagall, "I'm sure there _isn't_ , then your communication must have been very interesting to allow what was evidently, well, a _brawl_."

Malfoy snorts, though it obviously pains him with his nose (not broken, but leaking a thin stripe of blood down to the unusually pointy tips of his cupid's bow) still waiting to be healed.

"Sorry, it's just I'm not sure Potter here is master over any sort of _interesting communication_ _skills_."

"Oh, and everything that comes out of your mouth is just _gospel_ ," Hermione snaps, and Harry is briefly gratified by the show of solidarity before his best friend turns on him once again. _It's for science_ , Hermione pleads as she grills them both to within an inch of their lives. It's worse than Malfoy's elbow digging into the back of his neck, the downward pressure burying Harry's face in fertiliser. Harry catches Malfoy's eye and knows he feels the same way.


	2. Gravity

They don't like each other. They're not friends. There's not even a ceasefire of any sort because they're fighting as much as ever—but there's definitely _something_ different about it. An added layer of self-awareness they don't dare identify, but which colours every _Scared, Potter?_ and _Do your worst_ ; each _You wouldn't dare_ and _Then prove it_.

Malfoy comes to Transfiguration a few minutes late one day, and chooses the spare seat next to Harry over the one next to Seamus.

"Don't flatter yourself," he whispers as he unpacks his things and arranges them neatly on the desk in front of him. "Self-preservation and nothing more. Finnigan is a blasting hex waiting to go off."

Seamus, who hasn't actually created an explosion he didn't mean to create all year, doesn't look the least bit disappointed to have lost Malfoy's companionship. Harry suspects that having Malfoy close at hand might induced some sort of 'accidentally-on-purpose' pyrotechnic event, so maybe Malfoy isn't entirely wrong.

Still, Harry doesn't think the way Malfoy whispers as McGonagall's teaching assistant loses her grip on the porcupine she's made out of a small bundle of forks, or scoffs softly whenever Harry tries to write down a note doesn't feel much like what a person does when they're pretending not to be sitting with someone.

He catches Ron throwing him a sympathetic look at one point, and realises that it's actually unwarranted. Yeah, Malfoy moves his inkwell while he's writing to disrupt the habitual movements from pot to page. Yeah, he transfigures his forks flawlessly and then hides several of Harry's while Harry's busy answering the question McGonagall throws him after his three pages of notes _mysteriously_ flutter up off his desk like as many giant moths and deposit themselves all over the floor. Malfoy is a menace—but Harry has sat through every previous Transfiguration class like he's in a fog, like he's not really supposed to be here. There are different kinds of frustration, and Harry far prefers the kinds he can talk back to or throw hexes at. He feels awake for the first time in ages.

It's as the eighth years are filing out of this class that the row begins. It's faint at first, but grows louder as stomping footsteps descend the spiral stairs leading to the fifth floor and the Ravenclaw common room.

"There's no need to get angry about it!" a high, slightly clogged voice insists. "I don't know why all of a sudden you can't take no for an answer!"

"Because," says a second voice, more masculine though not deeper by all that much—still _so_ young to Harry's ear. "You won't even give me a chance to convince you. It's these stupid charms, Lydia. They're getting in the way of _us_ , how we work, how we've worked since third year—don't throw away a year and a half together over something stupid like this! McGonagall has no right to tell us what to do in the privacy of our own dorms. Nobody does!"

"Except, _apparently_ ," Lydia replies, much louder than the boy she's arguing with, who seems to be doing his best to project _reasonableness_ no matter what he says, " _you_ have the right to tell _me_ what to do. You're half right: this _is_ because of the charms. Because I never realised before how much you relied on just—just _touching me_ all the time until I gave in and agreed to what you wanted. You had to know I'd realise sooner or later, though! We're _both_ Ravenclaws; you're not the only one here with a fucking intellect, contrary to what you _obviously_ believe."

McGonagall leaves the classroom last, but quickly marches through the little crowd towards the stairwell, where Lydia's feet are just becoming visible.

"Miss Chowdhury," she addresses the girl, "what is going on?"

"Professor," Lydia says, souding surprised though apparently not intimidated. Upon noticing her audience, she pulls her shoulders back, sniffs with an air of finality, and dabs her eyes daintily with a handkerchief. "Alberto and I are just negotiating our breakup."

"Like hell. I mean, let's not be hasty," says Alberto, his reasonable-guy character slipping when confronted with the added pressure of the Headmistress' presence. "We're just having an argument. Couple stuff, Professor, nothing staff need to be concerned about."

"Perhaps, Mr Donini. However, it is the responsibility of Hogwarts' staff to ensure the welfare of its students. Do you not agree that that is important?"

Alberto seems to be having some kind of trouble with his face, his stiffness only growing worse. His performance of cool authority obviously doesn't work in front of _actual_ authority, and it's awful to watch. Harry shudders with second-hand embarrassment even as he dislikes the smarmy Ravenclaw.

"Yeah," Donini manages to say. "But I don't think—"

"It is therefore my obligation to make sure you are both quite safe. Miss Chowdhury appears distressed, and I would like to find out why in case the concern of staff can assist in ways you have not foreseen."

"I'm actually alright, Professor McGonagall," says Lydia. "Your consent charms already helped me figure out what I needed to. And breakups can be hard to come to terms with, but I'm sure Alby will get his big head around it soon. He's very quick on the uptake, like he always says."

"We should go. McGonagall has this under control," Hermione murmurs.

Harry agrees. It does feel awkward witnessing the fallout of a relationship he didn't know a thing about ten minutes ago. Ron, on the other hand, looks ready to pull out popcorn.

"I just want to see how it plays out," he whines, when Hermione grips his wrist tightly.

"If you can tell who's going to win three moves into a game of chess, Ronald, you can figure out how this scene is going to finish. Especially given that it's already practically over."

Ron decides to take the compliment and leave the rest, and allows Hermione to guide him off into the next corridor. Harry trails them. He glances back and, finding Malfoy absent from the crowd, chastises himself for letting the git slip away so completely under his radar.

*

The next day seventh and eighth years both have the morning free. Ron and Hermione are having some _alone time,_ so Harry tags along with Ginny when she goes to meet Luna. Things between Harry and Ginny are much better since they stopped trying to make their relationship into something it just wasn't anymore. The three of them wander around, jumper sleeves down over their hands, cupping hot mugs of tea spiked surreptitiously with whiskey from a flask Ginny produces with a wink. They don't go anywhere in particular; just chat between themselves and with portraits and ghosts as they pass.

"So I heard Lee and Cho are _engaged_ ," Ginny whispers dramatically. "George told me. It's supposed to be a secret, although I'm pretty sure everyone will know before long, so just don't tell him it was me who told."

"Engaged," Harry breathes, stunned.

"Oh, sorry Harry," Ginny says, not unkindly but still a little blithely.

Harry shakes his head. "It's not _that_. Just, the thought of marriage is so..."

"Grown-up?" supplies Luna.

"That's definitely part of it."

Harry's parents were married young: this is part of the small cache of knowledge he has gathered about them over the years. When he was still a child it was easier to believe that people really could be that adult, that sure, in their early twenties. Now he's almost there himself and can't fathom it. Harry knows who his friends are, knows that he wants to spend his life with _them_ —but in terms of relationships, career, all those official building blocks of a life...

"I can't imagine getting married young," says Ginny. "So much else to do."

"Who would you even marry?" Harry muses, thinking about the way Dean, Seamus and Ginny all lounge all over one another. They're not sickly-sweet about it, but they are shamelessly casual regardless of who's watching.

"Point. Marriage is kind of stupid overall, isn't it? So many rules. It's like, stop telling me how to live my life."

Harry's not sure he agrees that marriage is _stupid_. It's always seemed like a worthy aspiration to him—to be closer to another person than anyone else in the world; to have a love like his parents had; to have a family. Even so, he slings an arm over Ginny's shoulder, laughing into her shoulder while Luna tells them both all about the group-marriage traditions in the cultures of several possibly-existent magical creatures.

They wend their way back to the Great Hall for lunch, which is when they encounter the congregation of students just outside its doors. Harry can make out hints of white paint above their heads; points and curves that look like the tops of letters. People are muttering, pushing and craning their necks to see whatever's on the wall in front of them. A couple of prefects and other senior students are attempting to disperse the crowd, Hermione among them. She's too distracted to notice Harry, but he can see the sombre expression on her face.

A shiver of panic flows through him as he remembers discovering other writing on the walls of Hogwarts' corridors. Ginny's arm, looped around his waist, squeezes tightly.

They do as Hermione's doing, telling gawkers to either go into the hall or move off to another part of the castle. It's made more difficult by the fact they can't touch any of them, or throw any subtle hexes, but Ginny lets off a stinkbomb that she has handy for some reason Harry doesn't try to understand, and that shoos most of them away.

Now with a clear view, Harry can see that the painted text reads: LYDIA CHOWDHURY SUCKS TOES. It's no _her skeleton will lie in the chamber forever_ , but he still hasn't a clue what to do with it.

"Um. Gross?" says Ginny, obviously also unsure about what kind of response the situation warrants.

"Feet are a very sensual part of the body, actually," Luna tells them with a frown. "There's nothing wrong with sucking someone's toes if you both enjoy it."

"Er," says Harry. "I'm sure there's not anything, er, _wrong_ with it. I just don't think that even if this is true Lydia wanted it shared like this."

He wished in that moment that he'd been any good at Occlumency, because he wanted to blank his mind and not think at all about what the graffiti was telling him to imagine. He thought of Lydia on the stairs the previous day, defiant and so, so _young_. He wondered whether she knew about this yet, how she was feeling, whether she at least had some friends to help her through it. That was important when the whole school was gossiping about you, Harry knew.

"Oh. Yes, I do see that," Luna says, suddenly downcast. "How awful."

Harry's glad to find Lydia hunched in conversation with Hermione by the fire in the Gryffindor common room when he returns there after lunch.

"Have you eaten?" he asks them, because he's not sure what else to offer. From the speed at which she's talking, he'd say that Hermione has it covered for now and whatever he tries to contribute to their discussion—which seems to focus heavily on feminist theory—will only get in the way.

Lydia looks up at him, eyes glassy in the firelight but expression resolute as before. She shakes her head. "No. I'm not hungry though."

"You should have something, though," Hermione encourages. "Even if you keep it for later. You might be hungry again before dinner. And we could use some hot cocoa, if you wouldn't mind, Harry."

Harry gives them both a nod and a small smile, then heads back out of the common room. The lunch food has vanished from the Great Hall by the time he gets back there, the tables and floors all being polished by hardworking cloths and mops, so he makes his way to the kitchens instead. The house elves are pleased to see him, and throw together a more elaborate plate of snacks with the cocoa than Harry had asked for, as was their way.

"Thank you," he says, trying to look into each pair of dinner-plate eyes staring up at him. "This looks delicious, I appreciate it." He watches with satisfaction as the little creatures puff up with pride, though they try not to show it. They're free elves, but lifelong subservience dies hard.

Harry leaves the food and drinks with Hermione and Lydia and, suddenly tired, goes to lie in bed for a while. He tries to think of something it might energise him to do, but only ends up napping until Defence in the later afternoon.

*

The Defence teacher this year—Professor Ngige—is really quite good. Not as good as Lupin, Harry still thinks bitterly sometimes, but far better than all the others they've had. He's thirty-odd, tall, with a close-shaven scalp and subtle accent from his home in Kenya, although he studied mostly in Britain. There's a twinkle in his eye when he teaches, an enthusiasm that's so different Harry can't help but be drawn in by it.

The Professor isn't hungover from the war with Voldemort like everyone else here, having transferred from Uagadou specially for the Hogwarts post. As he explained in his first lesson, he's worked with children who've survived conflict and trauma before, though, teaching there. He is solid, softly spoken, and very clearly _cares_.

Sometimes, Ngige pushes his shirtsleeves up before performing a difficult spell, and in those moments Harry also thinks he wouldn't mind being wrapped up in the ropey-strong forearms the little habit exposes. Entirely inappropriate, yes—but there's something about returning to learn defensive magic at school after having _fought a war_ that feels faintly ridiculous. The idea that they can all be stuffed back into the _child_ box after having it torn from around them so mercilessly.

They're studying Patronuses right now, so Harry feels justified in zoning out. The Professor is smiling down at them all and praising how many of them are managing the very difficult charm—optional even in NEWT practicals.

"Well, Professor," Hermione pipe up, "Harry actually taught the charm to some of us in fifth year."

"Harry did, hm?" Ngige's bright eyes settle on Harry and he swallows down a groan. He knows what Hermione's trying to do—give him an opportunity to showcase the skills he has and _not fail his eighth year_ —but he's just tired. "That's remarkable. I don't think I have seen your Patronus yet. Would you care to give us a demonstration?"

Harry hears Malfoy disguise a gagging noise as a cough over on the other side of the room. He can picture the git's mouth twisting with theatrical disdain, and it gives him the unexpected shot of energy he needs to stand and conjure the oh-so-familiar silver stag, large and bright and full of motion.

"Fantastic!" Ngige exclaims. "Ten points to Gryffindor, I say. Harry, you _must_ elect the Patronus charm for your Defence Against the Dark Arts NEWT. If you can perform for the examiners as did just now it will be an O for sure."

Harry retakes his seat as the tiredness presses in on him again. "Thanks, Professor," he says, hoping that now he's done his piece he'll be able to coast through the rest of the class. There's nothing new for him to learn today anyway.

After Defence he heads to dinner with Ron, Hermione and Neville. Harry hasn't seen much of Neville lately—he keeps to himself, though he doesn't seem to be doing it out of unhappiness like Malfoy. When Harry does see him he's usually whistling to himself, smudged with dirt, brown and freckled with sun, with his hair twisted up into a clumsy sort of bun at the back of his head. Harry hasn't seen _him_ in the greenhouse, but there are more than enough plants elsewhere on Hogwarts grounds.

"McGonagall should say something about it before the meal," Hermione says. "Lydia's being very strong about the whole thing, but it's just unacceptable. Vengeful and cruel. Donini should be expelled!"

"Hermione," Ron replies slowly, "Not that I think this Donini kid doesn't deserve whatever he gets, but do you remember all the stuff we've done and not been expelled for? Fred and George, too—and Malfoy, at that?"

"He's got a point," Neville puts in. "You guys were bloody horrors from year one. Fighting a troll! What kind of first year does that? Petrifying fellow students..." he trails off and gives them a crooked smile to show he's not angry. Neville's just _like_ that, Harry thinks, not for the first time. He genuinely _forgives_ people for things, like he can just decide one day that he'd rather get along than hold what they've done against them, and let it go. Harry... Harry can't relate, though he thinks it'd make his life easier if he could.

"Touché," Harry grins back at him. "Hey Nev, have you ever seen Malfoy in the greenhouses?"

"A few times, yeah," is the cautious answer. "But mate, he's really just trying to garden. He hasn't said a word to me, or gotten in my way at all. Don't... well, don't sabotage it somehow, alright?"

"Er, sure. I won't," Harry says, entirely unused to being warned off sabotaging one of the primary saboteurs of his happiness since age eleven.

When they get to the hall, McGonagall is already standing up the front, commanding silence. Their footsteps are loud rounding the corner into the doorway despite the dozens of others already seated at the four long house tables.

Hermione casts them all a look that says _thank god_ , but even she doesn't dare to speak. There is no food out yet, even though the four of them are hardly early. There's a chill in the Hall, more bracing that usual, as if he charms keeping drafts out have been removed. Looking up at the figure cut by the Headmistress—tense and tall with her hat only adding to her height—it feels like the cold is issuing directly out of her. She's the woman who's offered Harry biscuits and sternly affectionate advice, but she's also the woman who rose all too naturally to the rank of war general when the circumstances necessitated it.

"McGonagall is _not_ messing around," Ron breathes daringly.

"Correct, Mr Weasley," McGonagall answers him, even though it can't be natural for her to have heard even in the silence. Ron shrinks from the knife-edges of her syllables. "I want to make it very clear indeed that I have not put this year's new rules in place for my own amusement. I expect them to be obeyed. Those of you who cannot grasp the intention behind those rules will be punished appropriately. I cannot, nor do I wish to prevent you from speaking, or writing your thoughts—but when these expressions are purposed toward abusing and humiliating one another in the same way that physical harm would do, your loopholes will not win you mercy.

"The perpetrator of today's incident will serve detention with me every Tuesday morning for the remainder of the school year. We will spend our time together productively, studying the importance of consent and respect in such detail that it cannot fail to make an impression. The size and regularity of our classes can easily be adjusted as needed."

To Harry's surprise, there's a small but enthusiastic vocalisation from the Ravenclaw table. Friends of Lydia's, he assumes, and probably some others who've recognised Donini for the arse he is. Hermione joins them, clapping hard, and slowly a smattering of others across the Hall do too. Harry and Ron both put in a few claps, although from the look they share Ron's still as confused by the turn of events as Harry.

"You see," Hermione beams, "it's not just a set of rules to make our lives harder. This is something lots of people care about."

"Oi, mate," Ron leans closer to mutter. "Wonder if she'll put you and Malfoy in that class if you keep beating each other up like you have been."

*

Malfoy has, apparently, had the same thought. He is now more careful when he needles Harry, and they retreat to deserted classrooms and quiet sections of the grounds when they feel a fight coming on.

Harry gets quite good at speedy healing charms, and even spends a bit of time in the library looking up the spells Aurors and field medics use when there isn't time to get to a hospital. When he pulls these books from the shelves, their words don't swim before his eyes the way his textbooks have been doing. He turns pages with satisfying speed, jots down notes and incantations as he goes, and feels pleasantly accomplished at the end of a session.

During one scuffle, in which Harry knocks Malfoy in the jaw and he spins off-balance into a wall with a sick crunch of his nose, Harry performs an _Episkey_ Flitwick would be truly proud of.

"Decent job, Potter," Malfoy admits once he's finished shrieking about how Harry's no doubt ruined his face for good with his hasty, subpar spellwork.

Harry shrugs. "Didn't mean to break your nose."

"Didn't you enjoy it anyway, though? That one's payback. Personal, you know."

Harry laughs—not even a derisive sort of laugh, just one of genuine amusement. "It's always personal when it's you and me, Malfoy," he says.

Malfoy holds Harry's gaze for a strange, vibratingly intense moment before turning on his heel and moving off towards the castle again. "You're nearly right," he throws over his shoulder as he goes.


	3. Momentum

The worst clash with Malfoy is the one Harry doesn't mean to have. He's sat next to Malfoy in Herbology theory this time, partly because he went back to sleep after Ron roused him for breakfast and so ran late to the eight o'clock class, and partly because it feels inexplicably right to be next to Malfoy in one of Pomona's classes, after their encounter in the greenhouse and the couple of similar ones which have followed it.

"Late again, Potter," Malfoy mutters, as if he hadn't been the one to come in late last time.

"Oh, save it," Harry mutters back as he unpacks his book and stationery.

Harry had, eventually, been drawn out of bed by an owl tapping insistently at the dorm window, which his bed was right underneath. He'd noted Andromeda's handwriting on the envelope and felt his irritation ebb away. He didn't want to rush reading it though, so he's still not opened it. Once he's established his disinterest in the subject matter of Pomona's lecture today, Harry opens the letter carefully and begins to read. It's full of all the usual things, but even the mundane is special to him: Teddy's doing well: growing big and learning to change more and more aspects of his appearance. His favourite hair colours at present are ginger and white tufts to match the splotchy coat on Andromeda's grumpy old kneazle. The kneazle tolerates Teddy with patience for a few hours a day before slinking off to sleep through the rest. Harry smiles to himself as he reads, and that's a grave mistake.

He's so caught up he doesn't notice Malfoy reading from his left side until Malfoy opens his mouth and says:

"Is this about the werewolf's child?"

Harry whips the letter away from him.

"Lupin and Tonks' son, yes," he says.

" _Such_ parentage," Malfoy drawls dismissively. "The child dodged an Unforgivable there; he's much better off being raised by even my estranged aunt."

And just like that, Harry is aflame. Insulting him is one thing, but insulting Lupin and Tonks—good people who gave their lives to defeat the dark wizard that Malfoy himself is pleased to be rid of—and to act like Andromeda isn't giving her all to raise her orphaned grandson with everything he needs. Harry's blood boils under his skin, rage hammering for an outlet, collecting in his fists and clenched jaw and his lungs, which are stuffed full with the urge to yell.

" _Fuck_ you, Malfoy," he says, trying to keep his voice low and failing. People at the desks around them turn, startled.

"No need to make a scene," Malfoy fucking _smarms_ , the _arsehole_ , like he didn't _start it_.

Harry wants to hit him but he _can't_ , and for a wild moment he actually resents McGonagall, at least on the burning surface of his consciousness.

"You know," he spits out instead, "you're one of few people I'd say _would_ have been _better off_ without his parents."

"Boys!" Pomona is calling from the front of the room. "Settle down, now."

But Malfoy is turning the red shade Harry imagines he would be if his skin was that same translucent off-white.

"Bruise your self-righteous, obdurate, _Gryffindor_ knuckles on my face if you can't resist your brutish urges, Potter, but _don't you talk about my family_ —"

"Not surprising that you can't handle a taste of your own potion. Get a shot in if you even _can_ when it's a fair fight," Harry grunts, and socks the Slytherin in his thin, sneering mouth.

For a while after that there's nothing but sharp bodily collisions turning to fading aches and a faint rabble around them, muted as if outside a room only he and Malfoy are in, screaming at one another with their bodies because it's so much more bearable than using their voices.

*

Harry's been waiting for Hermione's lecture, but that doesn't make it any less uncomfortable when it finally comes.

"Harry," she says, in that dismayed-and-disappointed tone she's had such mastery over since age eleven, probably earlier. "Harry that was _awful_. You and Malfoy have both got some very deep-seated issues, and the fact you'd both rather be beaten to a pulp than talk about any of it is _completely_ self-destructive."

Harry just nods, because there's no use in fighting it. "Well you should be satisfied knowing that we'll have no choice but to talk about it," he grumbles. "And probably write loads of essays too." He and Malfoy will both, on the combined orders of Professors Sprout and McGonagall, be attending mandatory counselling sessions with Professor Ngige, as well as McGonagall's detention classes.

"I'll be very interested to see what kinds of activities McGonagall sets for you," Hermione muses. "I wonder if she'd let me join the class without having to actually earn myself a detention..."

Twin cries—one of victory and the other of despair—erupt across the room as Ron finally loses the spirited game of gobstones he and Ginny have been playing. Apparently Ron's now kept his promise to Hermione that he stay out of her way while she confronts Harry, because he comes over and takes a seat between them.

"Is she telling you how she wants to take the detention class?" he asks Harry.

"Yeah."

"Mental, right?" he rolls his eyes, but it's affectionate. "Can I?" he turns to Hermione, holding a hand above her knee.

"Please," she consents, and Ron lets his hand rest against the fabric of her robes.

"I promise to show you all my homework," Harry tells her, which thankfully placates her a bit.

"Don't think I'm letting this slide though. If the counselling and the class don't help then Ron and I will find another way to make you and Malfoy work out your differences."

Harry casts Ron a betrayed look.

"Sorry, mate. It's for the best," says Ron. "We've all got our issues after the war, and we've got to deal with them whether we like it or not. I just want to see you happy, Harry."

Hermione gives Ron a proud look, and even though Harry knows they're both right about his issues, he can't help but feel they're on a wavelength he doesn't receive, and they can't understand what he's feeling either.

*

"It's more complicated than hating each other," Harry tells Ngige in their first session. He'd dutifully attended, not expecting to actually say a word, but something in the Professor's demeanour is so open and inviting.

"In what way?" Ngige inquires.

"I'm not really sure. We've always fought, Malfoy and I—and now that the war's over so many things are different, it's like. Like by fighting we can go back to normal in at least one way. When I argue with him, I know what I'm trying to do, and I know what he's doing too. It's familiar. And that's sort of something we can gift each other, even if we also mean our insults."

"A gift, hm," Ngige muses, and Harry abruptly regrets letting the words slip out of his mouth. They seem ridiculous, even if saying them has only made him recognise the truth in them more clearly. There is a reason he and Malfoy keep seeing each other out. A reason that, to facilitate their fighting, they've actually done quite a few things friends do: sitting together, starting conversations, finding each other around the school, coordinating their exits after mealtimes, and setting up times and places to rendezvous.

"Or something."

Ngige nods. Harry has no idea what he's thinking, but he gives off the impression of wisdom. Kind of like Dumbledore, actually, except young and dark-skinned with wide, dancing eyes and a livelier lilt in his voice.

"Do you think there might be some way for the two of you to provide this—gift—to one another without using violence?" Ngige asks.

Harry frowns. "Well, we could insult each other, but when we do that it feels- it isn't- it's just bad. Like the hurt we're dealing is a reminder, instead of a distraction from all the rest."

"A distraction indeed." If the Professor had a beard, Harry _knows_ he'd be stroking it thoughtfully. "If that is the purpose your conflict with Mr Malfoy serves, then I believe you two can find a better way to distract yourselves," he says.

Harry's not sure what kinds of things Ngige thinks he and Malfoy might do together.

Besides going to detention, that is.

Harry's alarm charm drags him out of bed just before six o'clock on Tuesday morning. It's cold and dark and he feels like he's been kicked in the chest by a Thestral, but he pulls on his clothes and makes his way to the designated classroom, frosty breeze scraping over the bared skin of his face and hands. 

There are only four students in this—the first—session: himself, Malfoy, Donini, and a second-year girl who tried to give someone chocolates spiked with love potion. Harry has no desire to sit next to her or Donini, so he takes the other seat at the desk Malfoy's already occupying.

"That Alberto Donini is a common piece of work," Malfoy comments, and though Harry dislikes how he goes about it, he can't help but agree with the sentiment. "The Doninis are purebloods, you know. Old family, but new money; they were poorer than the Weasleys until Alberto's grandfather made a fortune gambling. Apparently he had a genuine talent for divination."

"Don't talk about the Weasleys," Harry grits out, but before things can escalate Professor McGonagall sweeps into the room, bringing with her a no-nonsense air that silences the hushed conversation and sounds of fidgeting in the room.

"Right then," she says. "Welcome, you four, to a remedial learning experience. Mr Potter and Mr Malfoy, I see that you have already paired yourselves off. Good; you will be working on a project together. Mr Donini and Miss Slater, you will be working on individual essays relating to your particular actions."

Harry turns to look at Malfoy, who is resolutely not looking at him. He thinks about Ngige's advice and wonders what McGonagall will have the two of them do; whether it will be a new kind of distraction.

As it turns out, of course, their task is not a distraction at all. After McGonagall sets the other two their essay topics and provides each of them with a heavy stack of relevant books for reference, she summons Harry and Malfoy to the far corner, puts up a silencing charm and explains that their task will be to 'confront the issues they are so clearly repressing with violence'.

Harry and Malfoy look mutely down at the sheet of slightly glossy parchment, the inkwell, and the two battered quills they've been given.

"What did she mean, the parchment won't let us lie?" Harry asks, trying to digest the lecture. It's still so very early.

"I'd hazard a guess that what she meant is that _the parchment won't let us lie_."

"Thanks, Malfoy, that was really helpful."

"I live to serve." Malfoy is trying very hard to sound bored, and he's almost succeeding—but Harry recognises the twinge of nervousness tightening his sharply-sloped jaw.

As the Gryffindor in the room, he decides on trial by error. He dips one of the quills and puts it to the page, writing: _My name is not Harry Potter_.

The words glimmer there in green for a few seconds before rearranging themselves. The ink snakes across the surface of the parchment like it's waxed, instead of soaking in the way it would have into Riddle's diary, so Harry manages not to be too unsettled by it. The new words, written in his own hand, are: _I'm well aware my name is Harry Potter_.

Harry looks to Malfoy, waiting for him to laugh or make some snide remark at the parchment's sass, but the Slytherin is silent, more obviously uneasy than before. Harry doesn't like it, the same way he didn't like Malfoy's quiet haunting of the castle prior to their little fighting habit.

"We don't have to write down anything we don't want to," Harry says. "So what's the worst that can happen?"

Malfoy does roll his eyes at that, pleasing Harry. "Your optimism may be the death of us," he says, but he picks up the other quill, dips it in the ink and begins to write.

They're supposed to figure out at least thirty things they have in common and write it down.

 _I dislike this activity_ , Malfoy's cursive shines across the page, neat and even if as overly angular as Malfoy himself.

 _I dislike this activity_ , Harry replicates, and both lines go matte as the magic accepts them as truth, and the ink dries down.

"Well," says Malfoy. "I suppose we should formulate a strategy. Work our way through an extensive list of foods we both eat, or something harmless like that."

Harry nods. "We could start with fruit," he suggests, because his mouth is still dry and sour from morning, and he's hoping there'll be a nice fresh fruit platter left for him when he gets to breakfast.

Malfoy wrinkles his nose. "I'm not a fan of fruit," he says, "apples excepted."

 _I like apples_ , Harry writes.

 _I like apples_ , Malfoy mirrors, and once again the words set.

Harry gestures for Malfoy to take a turn going first.

 _I am ambivalent about oranges_ , Malfoy writes.

"I really like oranges," Harry informs him. "It won't let me write that."

"Well, perhaps you should try liking them less," snaps Malfoy.

"Perhaps _you_ should try liking them _more_."

Malfoy puts a wonky line through his opinion on oranges. He looks at Harry and asks, "Bananas?"

"Are great."

"It's as if we have nothing in common at _all_."

"Because you're a picky eater," Harry points out. "I eat just about everything."

"How do you feel about _foie gras_?" Malfoy asks, accent getting posher, the surest signal he's trying to be a bigger wanker than normal. "Lobster? Oysters? _Escargot_?"

"When do you expect me to have tried those things, exactly? Let's just go through the dishes served at Hogwarts for starters."

"Fine. Chicken, Potter?"

"I'm not—" Harry starts, before he realises that Malfoy is asking him about whether he likes eating actual chicken, rather than accusing him of being scared. "Yeah. Chicken is good."

 _I like chicken_ , they both write.

By the end of the hour, they have noted exactly thirty inane commonalities between their tastes.

McGonagall frowns as she peruses their list. "While I am relieved to see that neither of you harbours any ill will towards onions, I will expect better from you next week," she says. "You were unprepared for the task today, but henceforth you both have notice; come up with some better answers or your quota will expand to fifty items per session."

"Some of us have _real_ homework we actually plan to do," Malfoy mutters through his teeth, and Harry's glad McGonagall doesn't appear to hear him.

"Bugger off, I'm going to do mine as well," Harry replies in kind, though the statement feels flimsy as it escapes the corner of his mouth.

"Write it on the charmed parchment then."

Harry declines to do this.

*

Without even meaning to, Harry finds himself undertaking the homework assignment. When he sees Malfoy out on his broom through the window one morning, he notes that they both enjoy a refreshing morning flight. When he sits with him in class, he notes that they prefer the same colour, if not the same brand, of ink. Both of them opt for parchment pages rather than the more cumbersome scrolls, although Harry's pages are plain and Draco's are flecked with something silvery. They write with their right hands. They gravitate towards the back of the classroom, nearest the door wherever possible.

They keep sitting together, somehow, although the insults they trade are just sparring, with no intent to break the skin. They rough each other up once or twice, but it's entirely half-hearted compared to their fight in Herbology. Harry discovers how sensitive Malfoy is about having his hair pulled. This they don't have in common, but Harry files away the information nonetheless.

"I'm not _trying_ to hate him anymore," Harry tells Professor Ngige in their second mandated session. "But there's so much history, and we get under each other's skin so easily—it's impossible not to feel _something_. Even if it's not hate, he's the most frustrating person I know by far."

Ngige nods, a calm expression on his handsome, rounded face. "You are becoming admirably aware of yourself, Harry," he says. "I want you to think about the task the Headmistress has set you and Draco, to uncover your commonalities. What do you think is the source of your conflict now that your opinions of Voldemort are aligned?"

Harry knows it's not their views on fruit, even if they could find a way to argue about that for hours given the chance. Actual support of Voldemort was only ever one part of the problem with Malfoy. Whether or not Voldemort was around, Malfoy believed in all sorts of pureblood superiority rubbish, and he made fun of people who weren't filthy rich like him, who didn't have the things he had. Finding out that, actually, he hated being around his Dark Lord didn't necessarily undo any of these faults.

"He's always been mean, a bully, thinking other people were beneath him just because of who their families were or how much gold they had," he explains. "It wasn't just the Voldemort thing."

Ngige nods, in that thoughtful way of his. "And are Draco's actions in this regard the same as they were when you were younger?"

 _Well, yeah_ , Harry almost agrees automatically. But a niggling doubt stops his mouth, and once he starts to think about it, he can't come up with many—if any—instances of Malfoy bullying other students in the year so far. It's only been Harry that he's allowed himself to engage in any sort of conflict with. Otherwise, it's been Malfoy himself who's been targeted for his blood status (pureblood without the decency to become a so-called blood traitor), or his finances (most of the Malfoy vaults were emptied by the Ministry, several of the family's properties are up for sale—the Manor included—and it's only a matter of time). All Malfoy had done to anyone, really, was try his best to stay out of their way.

"Not to anyone else," Harry revises his answer.

"But he still acts this way towards you specifically?"

"Yes—well. Kind of." Malfoy chose to spout shit about Lupin and Tonks, for which he won't soon be forgiven. But otherwise...

Harry realises with an awful jolt that _he's_ the one who started things up with Malfoy again. Him, in pursuit of some kind of normality, when Malfoy had actually changed his behaviour quite drastically with his efforts to stay the fuck away.


	4. Satellites

Walking the halls arm in arm with Luna, Ginny or both becomes a habit. It's one Harry loves. He loves their firm opinions and creative ideas, often at totally different ends of the spectrum, and even more often from perspectives he hasn't thought of himself yet. He loves that there's no tension between himself and Gin, and that his brain can't conjure up the feeling that she and Luna'd be happier if he left them alone to snog each other the way it can when he kills time with Ron and Hermione.

After a mug of tea that's more Ogden's than English Breakfast, Harry asks them what they think about Malfoy, and him, and whatever's going on with him and Malfoy.

"You two have always been kind of psycho about each other," Ginny tells him cheerily, her freckled cheeks flushed a rosy shade from the drink.

"I've been reading about magnets, lately," says Luna. "You know how they work, Harry, don't you? How the opposite ends attract one another?"

Harry follows the metaphor. "What, you think Malfoy and I are magnets?"

"I do. He's always been drawn to you, and you to him. And the other thing about magnets is that without a partner they're just... objects. Paired, though, they have a role; a purpose; a force drawing them in a certain direction."

"Dad got playing with magnets once," is Ginny's contribution; "they're kind of creepy, I reckon. So, you know, it fits."

Harry goes to elbow her in the ribs, but she's too quick, dodging in front of the playful blow.   

"Opposites are beautiful, really," Luna says, and this time there's an absentmindedness about her speech that never fails to spark Harry's curiosity. "It's amazing who you can find yourself partnered with when you let yourself follow the pull."

Ginny rounds on her, unlinking her arm from Harry's and turning to face them, traipsing backwards through the hallway. "And who are _you_ drawn to, Luna?" she asks, a glint in her eye.

Luna smiles dreamily. "I haven't asked her if it's okay to tell yet, but I will. Maybe I'll bring her with me next time we do this."

"She?" Harry asks, and goes to share a questioning look with Ginny only to find that Gin hasn't batted an eyelash.

"Yes," Luna confirms brightly. "That is how she prefers to be known."

Harry can't argue with that, so he doesn't try.

*

Harry is spared the suspense of meeting Luna's new person at their next castle walk by the horror of turning a corner on his way out to the Quidditch pitch and finding her sandwiched quite tightly between a wall and Pansy Parkinson. He'd be concerned, go and pull Parkinson off his friend, except there's no way they'd be able to do this if they hadn't both agreed to it. Harry looks away as soon as he can, but not before he's caught a few terrible snippets: the way Luna's hand is pushed up under the hem of Parkinson's skirt; the throaty sound Parkinson makes; the sides of Luna's blouse hanging loose, unbuttoned.

"Oh, fuck," he says reflexively, the way he might if he'd turned the corner and been faced with a gigantic blast-ended skrewt.

He hurries on past, but hears Luna's voice call his name not five seconds later. He isn't far enough away to pretend he hasn't heard. Reluctantly, he turns around.

Parkinson's staring at the ground, smoothing her crumpled skirt down against her thighs even though her hands have done as much for it as they're going to. Her dark hair falls forward, a curtain around her face. Luna, on the other hand, is smiling brightly and just waiting for Harry to meet her eyes.

"The surprise is a bit ruined now," she says. "If it even was a surprise, that is."

Harry's jaw hangs open for a second before he manages to reply: "How would _you snogging Pansy Parkinson_ not be a surprise?"

Parkinson, apparently unable to keep herself quiet and unobtrusive, snorts in a not unmalfoylike manner.

" _Honestly_ , Potter," she says, arrogant although Harry notices there is a tremor that runs through her voice. "You and Draco are as ignorant as each other—watching out for how the other takes their tea but never bothering to notice what's important to the people closest to you."

Luna lays a comforting hand on Parkinson's wrist, and the Slytherin takes a deep breath then seems to deflate. Harry watches on, confounded.

"It's not like it's really been a secret, is what I mean," Parkinson clarifies, and Luna gives her a pleased smile for her restraint.

"It's been pretty secret from me," says Harry. "How on earth was I supposed to suspect _this_? How on earth did this even _happen_?"

"Luna poisoned those girls who hexed me. It was darling."

Luna rolls her eyes at Parkinson. "I gave them an infusion designed to banish nargles," she explains.

Parkinson grins. "Turns out they _were_ the nargles. Did you really not hear about them all being rushed to the hospital wing right after I was?"

Harry shakes his head. He hadn't heard. Someone had hit Malfoy's forearm with a severing curse around that time, like they were trying to cut the Mark right off him by way of amputation. Whoever was responsible had bad aim, and the curse had only left a shallow gash on the edge of Malfoy's wrist, but there'd been a lot of blood on the floor before Professor McGonagall had shown up and vanished it.  

"Er," Harry says. "Are they alright? The girls Luna poisoned?"

"They're alive," Parkinson says with the flap of a hand. "Anyway. There's a Hogsmeade trip in a few weeks and if you're not too arrogant to associate with those of us who didn't save the world, you should come to the Hog's Head."

Harry blinks. "Sure?" he says, looking imploringly at Luna for some sort of way out. All she gives him is an encouraging grin. "Who's us, though?"

"Oh, you know. Me, Draco, Millie, Blaise, Greg. Not Theo, because he's been an arse ever since Millie dumped him. Luna, of course, and one of your Gryffindors, too. Which one was it again, lovely?" Parkinson looks to Luna.

"Neville," Luna fills in.

" _Nev_ — why would Neville hang out with you lot, Parkinson?"

"No need to shout. And you should probably just call me Pansy, as I'm going down on your good friend every other night."

Harry gulps.

"Oh, no," Luna says, lacing her fingers in between Parkinso— Pansy's. "Don't sell yourself short; it's more often than that."

There's a long beat of silence, and Harry's sorely tempted just to turn on his heel.

"I'm glad you're happy," he manages, stiltedly, to say.

Luna drops Pansy's hand and surges forward to hug Harry. "Thank you," she says, "I knew you'd understand, I'm just sorry to have surprised you like this."

"It's," Harry struggles, because now there's no way he can disappoint Luna by _not understanding_. "It's okay, Luna. I don't mind, and of course I understand."

He makes the mistake of looking over Luna's shoulder at Pansy, who has her arms crossed and the look of a cream-fattened cat on her face. Luna may not have manipulated him into being supportive on purpose, but Pansy looks as proud as if she had. It's kind of sweet, in a very weird, horrifying way.

*

 _I had no idea my friend was shagging his friend_ , Harry writes on the charmed parchment in their next detention class.

" _What?_ " squawks Malfoy, his ears turning gratifyingly pink against the white-blond hair tucked neatly behind them.

"Luna and Pansy," Harry explains.

"Don't be ridiculous."

"For once, I'm _not_ ," Harry rolls his eyes.

The snort of amusement he gets from Malfoy feels good. It feels good in much the same way teasing a scowl out of him does, or digging at his soft spots until his anger spills out of him.

"Keep insulting yourself, Potter; it saves me from always having to carry that burden." Even as Malfoy mutters this under his breath, he's putting his quill to the page and copying out Harry's statement. "There," he declares when he's done. "Whether or not your allegation is—traumatically—true, it's helped us get something on this blasted parchment. What else have you got?"

"It's your turn," Harry points out.

Malfoy rolls his eyes. _I like playing Quidditch_ , he writes.

_I like playing Quidditch._

_I like flying before breakfast_.

Malfoy raises a brow at this. "Are you guessing, or stalking me?" he asks.

Harry shrugs. "Don't have to be a stalker to look out a window once in a while."

"Perhaps not," Malfoy says, audibly unconvinced.

_I like flying before breakfast._

"We could fly together sometime," Harry blurts out. He then fights the urge to bury his head in his hands, because Merlin knows that would only make things worse. "I mean, maybe we'll both end up going out on the same morning. And if we were both there, it'd be more fun to fly together."

"I suppose you are the only one with half a hope of keeping up with me," says Malfoy, regarding Harry cautiously.

"More like the other way around."

"That's for you to prove," Malfoy sniffs, and then turns back to their list with a thoughtful look.

 _I am a competitive person,_ he writes.

Harry scratches out the same words underneath—but before he's even done the ink is shifting. _I am competitive when it comes to Draco Malfoy_ , the new statement reads.

"Interesting," Malfoy murmurs, but to Harry's immense relief he doesn't comment any further.

Harry's been competitive when Malfoy wasn't involved—he knows it. Perhaps some of those times were based more in survival, or desperation, but they've definitely existed. Maybe not on the same level as his rivalry with Malfoy... which is what he was thinking of as he wrote. The parchment charms must feed off intention in some way, Harry theorises. Maybe they're relatives of the consent charms McGonagall has put up over the school.

 _I like going to Honeyduke's on Hogsmeade weekends,_ writes Harry, because it's not _technically_ a food point. It's an activity. Which is better.

Malfoy nods and notes down his agreement.

 _I do not enjoy going to Madam Puddifoot's_.

They fall into a rhythm of writing down straightforward likes and dislikes—more meaningful than their fruit preferences but still nothing hugely personal. It feels strange, treading around each other's feelings given they've previously spent their entire school careers treading _on_ them with as much force as they could.

Harry's not really even thinking when he writes it—in between _I enjoy listening to Quidditch on the wireless_ and _I think it'd be cool to be an animagus_. He's just thinking of average things blokes their age are interested in.

 _I like girls_ , he writes.

And Malfoy baulks.

"Merlin, Potter," he says, the words sounding painful, sounding _squeezed_ out of his throat. "We get it. You're a big hero and you'll always get the girl—but it's a bit of an _ignorant fucking assumption_ to make that everyone else wants the same from their lives as you do."

Harry, alarmed by the sudden vehemence of Malfoy's response, sits up in his chair. The drowsiness of going through the motions and writing out everyday, average things is lifted sharply off him.

"Oh," he says. "Sorry?"

"Are you sorry, or are you asking me whether you ought to be?"

"I'm sorry."

"And why are you sorry, Potter?"

"I'm sorry because not everyone's straight, and I _know_ that, and I shouldn't have assumed."

Harry tries to put appropriate feeling into his voice—not just to subdue Malfoy, but because now that he thinks about it, he was an arse to put that down on paper. Harry really _does_ know that not everyone's straight. He knew it when he started reflecting on his admiration for Oliver Wood, and Bill Weasley, and Cedric. Something about camping in the forest with Hermione had helped clarify it for him (and talking to her about it had helped a lot with that too). The rest of what they had to think about and to talk about made the questioning of Harry's sexuality seem far less daunting.

If Malfoy _did_ like girls, though, Harry's fairly certain he'd just have written as much down. If his complaint about Harry's assumption was based in solidarity for someone close to him, he'd still have duplicated the point, even if he criticised Harry for it afterwards. They both want to get the detention assignment over with too much to reject viable items.

So then, Harry wonders, head spinning like he's stood up too fast, or lain down after a firewhiskey sour too many...

A Gryffindor, he takes a breath and crosses out _I like girls_ and replaces it with _I like boys_.

Malfoy makes a noise like he's been hit with a stinging hex. "You _complete tosser_ —" he starts, then pulls up short, no doubt realising what it means that the ink has settled into the parchment, the words unchanged. "You...?"

Harry shrugs, not bothering to restrain a small grin at the completely unguarded look of shock on Malfoy's pale, pointy face. His eyes are wide—wider than they usually are when they're looking at Harry. It makes him look younger, softer. "Yeah. It's no big deal. And you don't have to write yours down if you don't want to."

Malfoy falters for a section and then, bit by bit, sets his usual composed demeanour back in place. It's a fascinating process to observe, actually—the donning of that pureblood air he always thought was inherent, effortless.

 _I like boys_ , he writes, and glares at Harry defiantly.

McGonagall appears satisfied when she collects their work at the end of the hour. For how paradoxically jittery and tired Harry feels, she'd better appreciate their efforts this time around.

He and Malfoy walk to breakfast together, albeit in silence. It would only be awkward going the same way at the same time and pretending to ignore the other's existence. Malfoy walks with slightly longer, slower strides than Harry does. They both swing their arms enough that Harry can feel the whoosh of air when Malfoy's hand moves almost close enough to touch.

*

"Did you know Malfoy was _gay_?" Harry asks Luna and Ginny—whispering, like they might be overheard even as they're lying in the grass at the edge of the grounds, not another student in sight let alone earshot.

"Did you _not_?" Ginny replies.

Harry props himself up on his elbow and looks down at her, annoyed. She looks back up at him, unfazed, and raises one thin, ginger eyebrow.

"Was there some kind of email blast only I missed out on?"

"I don't know what that is. I just figured it out because it was _obvious_ ," says Ginny. "His supposed girlfriend was all over a different Slytherin girl each week for a while there, and he was too busy staring at _you_ to even notice."

"And he told me," Luna explains. Harry can tell from the distant, wafting tone in her voice that she's more involved in remembering than speaking. "It was while I was in the cellars at the Manor. We talked, and he told me about Pansy—and then, this year, Pansy told me about him thinking I didn't know. At first I thought it was a bit cruel, outing each other, but I've come to think they like it better that way. Getting each other to say it, instead of having to themselves. It was obviously hard for him to say that he was gay. It was just hard not to, as well."

"The real question isn't what Harry knows about Malfoy's sexuality, but what he's going to do about it," says Ginny.

Harry glares at her. "Why do I have to do anything about it?"

"Because you do something about whatever Malfoy does. Always have." Ginny puts her arm around him, a gesture of mocking comfort. "You've thought about it, yeah?"

"Thought about what?"

"About fucking Malfoy. Merlin, keep up."

Harry squawks out a protest, but she doesn't give him the space to properly interrupt.

"He's got a pretty mouth, even if he uses it to say awful shit. He gives off such pushy bottom vibes—perfect for you."

Ginny's voice fades as the intensity of the images behind Harry's eyes takes over his focus. He really, truly _hasn't_ thought about— about _fucking Malfoy_ before. He's just always been interested in what Malfoy's doing, where and how he is. There's always been a thread of something connecting them. He hasn't ever thought that thread was one of sexual attraction, though.

Sure, Malfoy's always been good-looking. It's just always been overshadowed by his nastiness, and, well... Harry's never known him to be interested in the same sex until now. It's never been on the table.

"Deep down he wants to be good, and gentle," Luna is saying when Harry tunes back in. "I think he's forgotten how, though. And isn't good at trying things he mightn't be a natural at."

Harry doesn't know about Malfoy wanting to be _gentle_ , but there is something in Luna's words that makes sense. Malfoy's not going out of his way to be awful anymore. Other than towards Harry—in _response_ to Harry—he's been... neutral. Like he's not sure how to say anything nice so he's not saying anything at all.

If this is the case, Harry should feel bad about trying to prod Malfoy's old fire out of him—but he still can't quite manage it. He doesn't like the idea that Malfoy would just _retreat_. Changing is different from just being defeated.

*

Harry curses Gin and Luna when he's lying awake, unable to stop thinking about Malfoy's mouth and how it curls when he smirks—the amused smirk, not the cold, sneering one. Malfoy's hands, so precise and delicate when he slices potion ingredients but so recklessly swung at Harry in the heat of the moment.

Entirely against his will, he wonders whether Ginny's right about Malfoy—whether he would be a pushy bottom. She's had a pretty good track record of guessing these things; Harry was her main failing, but then they'd both been even younger than they are now, with even more to learn.

 _I just like pegging too much to be with a guy who doesn't_ like _to bottom—no matter how generously accommodating he is_ , she'd told Ron when he wanted to know why she and Harry had broken up. It wasn't _the_ truth, but it was _a_ truth. And Ron never again tried to wheedle any more information out of either of them.

He drifts off midway through a plan to confirm Malfoy's preferences with the help of the charmed parchment.

 

Harry mentally throws a weird look at his midnight self when he remembers that whole train of thought at breakfast.


	5. Electrostatic

Alberto Donini appears to have come to the conclusion that there is only so much detention he can get.

Harry's attempts to study for the written DADA test he has later in the afternoon are interrupted by the sounds of Hermione on the warpath.

"What are you looking at, Seamus? Move. Make room for—thanks, Cherie. You! Stare another second and I'll hex your eyes shut."

Underneath the steady stream of furious commands and the nonplussed reactions of the other students being pushed aside, soft crying is audible. Harry is hesitant to look up from his book, but when Hermione heads over to the fire he's sitting right beside, he can't really help it. The fire glints off her eyes like they're its source. Next to her, Lydia Chowdhury is red-eyed. She still holds her chin up, but she doesn't meet Harry's eyes. She rubs at the lines of sticky, drying salt on her cheeks. They must be itchy.

Harry, who's been on the sniffly side on this particularly chilly morning—not enough to go to Madam Pomfrey for a pepperup, but enough to make the fireside more appealing than breakfast—has a box of tissues within reach and is able to offer them to her. Lydia takes them and dabs at her face with a dignity that doesn't look nearly as easily maintained as it did last time.

"What happened?" Harry asks Hermione, brows already furrowed in horrible anticipation.

"People have continued to find ways to evade the responsibility to be decent human beings, is what's happened," Hermione positively _growls_. "It's Donini again, but he's found friends to help him this time too. McGonagall's confiscated a half-dozen photographs. Taken in girls' bathrooms from every house."

Harry is immensely glad he decided not to leave the common room this morning.

"Where is this all _coming from_?" he asks. "I don't remember students doing stuff like this before."

"There have always been arseholes," Hermione says. "But they're pushing back, now that Hogwarts is trying to stamp out their entitled behaviour."

"I don't know how he could get into the showers," says Lydia quietly, gaze fixed on the floor, clearly still processing. "Only girls can get into our dorms at all."

"He can't get in," Hermione says, toning down her anger just enough to come across as reassuring. "We don't know who else is involved yet. But there's no way Jasper himself could get to you in there."

"But if one of the other girls—"

"We'll find out who's behind it," Harry says, even though so far he has no idea _how_. They've always found a way. He glances at Hermione, who is ready with a decisive nod.

"Really?" Lydia looks up at him now, and seeing the reassurance his reputation gives her makes the moment one of the rare occasions on which Harry's glad to be Harry Potter, The Boy Who Lived.

"We'll do whatever it takes," Harry promises, and the watery smile he gets in return makes it impossible to regret the commitment.

*

Harry's never seen the Great Hall looking anything like it does at lunch that day. The Ravenclaw table is overflowing—not just with Ravenclaws, but with Hufflepuffs, Gryffindors and Slytherins. The Slytherin table is the emptiest of all.

"They got a fifth year girl and a first-year, from Slytherin," Ron whispers when he sees Harry looking at the small group huddled at that far table. Some are Slytherins, but there are a mixture of others there too; by now Harry recognises the back of Alberto Donini's head, having been subjected to it in morning detentions.

"It's disgusting. And it's _criminal_ ," Hermione hisses.

Harry, looking around at the first-years dotted about the hall, can't hold in a shudder. Every year they seem smaller. Eleven and twelve year olds, they are still well and truly children.

"Mione!" someone calls from the Ravenclaw table. A few hands shoot up, waving and beckoning. "Ron, Harry, hi."

Lydia and her friends are at the centre of it all—he, Ron and Hermione can't get through the layered crowd to actually sit with them, but there is space for three at the Hufflepuff table, and they sit facing backwards as many of the others are doing.

The second ring around the Ravenclaw girls appears to be made up mostly of Slytherins. They stand close, brushing shoulders and whispering to one another. No younger student is without an older one somewhere close by. For the first time, Harry feels a twinge of warmth seeing the way Slytherins protect their own. When it's for the right cause, it suddenly feels like a mentality very familiar to Harry. Like something he would have enjoyed about the house, had he allowed the Hat to place him in it all those years ago.

Hufflepuffs create a buffer from the outside world, passing plates of food and jugs of pumpkin juice around so that the people standing or sitting in awkward spots can get a bit of everything. They dole out smiles where smiles are scarce. It's something so simple, so easily overlooked, but Harry doesn't know that he'd be capable of it right now.

Not when Hermione is filling him in (in broad terms only) on the targets of Donini and Co's latest crime: the Slytherin first year girl, Ravenclaw and Slytherin fifth years, a fourth year Gryffindor and a pair of third years from Hufflepuff.

 _We've got eyes everywhere_ , seems to be the statement being made. _We'll always be able to invade and violate. We'll touch even if you stop us from doing it with our hands._

"We have to look out for each other," one of Lydia's Ravenclaw friends is saying, in a voice made for public speaking.

She's tall and slim with a shaved head, an accent with (to Harry's ear, at least) hints of Wales and India both, huge bright brown eyes, and skin a bit darker than his. He fully expects to see her sitting in Kingsley's current chair in a few decades' time.

"We have to stay united and send the message that this is unacceptable, and nobody who acts like this will ever succeed in our society."

"Remind you of anyone?" Ron nudges Harry, while he flashes Hermione a teasing smile.

"Hazel's really quite brilliant," she replies. "I'm flattered by the comparison."

"Nobody who acts like this will fucking _survive us_ ," a burly blond boy with a green scarf declares, to a few hoots of agreement. There's a tiny girl, also blonde, sitting next to him. A first-year Slytherin girl. Merlin, she must be one of the tiniest people Harry's ever seen, with her skinny, freckled arms and fine pigtails trailing down over her shoulders. His fists clench around his knife and fork at the thought of anyone hurting her.

Harry still frowns at the boy's sentiment, though—and he can see others doing the same, or opening their mouths to protest. The surprisingly easy unity he'd walked into the hall to find might not be as easy as he thought.

*

On Thursday, Donini is stationed on one of the staircases shouting about the apparently _innumerable_ relationships McGonagall's extremist consent scheme has ruined so far. According to him, the destruction of boys' ability to take charge has made them unattractive to girls. According to him, they're being disadvantaged deliberately by a Headmistress who only wants female students to succeed.

On Friday, there's a group of girls outside selling bright pink badges that read, _It's Okay, You Can Touch Me!_ One of them has cast a _Sonorous_ and is promising passersby that not all girls agree with the rules. Not all girls want to stop boys from being themselves.

On Saturday, Harry and Ron are unfortunate enough to be heading back towards the castle with brooms and quaffle in hand at the same time as Alberto Donini is snogging a tall brunette against the wall. Back in the Gryffindor common room, Lydia is putting on a brave face and telling Hermione, Parvati, Ginny, Dean, Seamus, Luna, Hazel and a growing collection of sympathisers from various houses about how she doesn't care who he's snogging now; she's just glad it isn't her, and she hopes that Marianne—the brunette, Harry gathers—isn't being manipulated.

On Monday night Marianne is huddled on one of the armchairs with them all, cradling a mug of hot cocoa that has half a dozen marshmallows melting on its surface.

*

There are five new faces in detention on Tuesday morning. Along with Donini, they spend the first five minutes of the session clamouring about how McGonagall is silencing their freedom of expression. She gives them a look that could turn a thousand year old oak to a withered husk, and eventually Donini's backup back down. No longer bolstered by the strength in numbers, he falls into the sullen hush along with them.  

Harry heads straight over to Malfoy, and McGonagall provides them with their writing equipment.

"It's been madness this past week," Harry says, attempting for some reason to make a conversation with his deskmate.

"So I've heard," replies Malfoy. "I've been avoiding it all myself. Pomona, Longbottom and I have a lovely crop of tentacula coming up."

Harry's not surprised to hear that Neville has been gardening, but he is—understandably, he feels—caught off guard by the idea of him doing it with _Malfoy_. Maybe this is why he's agreed to go to Hogsmeade with Luna and the Slytherins? Maybe he and Malfoy are— are _friends_ , or something, and they— they _hang out_ , or something.

Harry's not sure why this bothers him. So long as Nev's comfortable with it all, there's no reason he shouldn't be pleased. He doesn't hate Malfoy, and it's good for Neville to have the company of someone else who likes to do plant stuff. None of his mates from Gryffindor have been willing to spend their free time in the greenhouse.  

He follows a different thread when he speaks:  "What good does that do, though?" he asks. "Avoiding it."

Malfoy turns a sharp look on him, and for once Harry regrets seeing the anger in his eyes. For once, he didn't mean to provoke it.

"The _good_ it does, Potter, is that nobody's put me in the hospital wing all week, nor have I put anyone there."

"That's not really _good_ though, is it?" Harry says, slowly, not wanting to fan the flames. "I mean, it's good that you're not hurt, of course. But in terms of fixing what's happening it does nothing."

Malfoy breathes for a moment. He seems to settle on incredulity rather than rage, to Harry's relief.

"No, I suppose it does no good if your measure of goodness is saving the world," he says. "But for now I'm focusing on not actively ruining it. Baby steps, you know." The sarcastic edge to his words peels tellingly—inexpertly pasted over a base Harry thinks sounds almost frank.

"You're really trying," he observes.

"Of course I'm bloody trying. I don't want to end up dead, or in Azkaban, or dead in Azkaban. Let's just write our list, alright? We're not friends. I'm not here to confide in you my various hopes and dreams."

Harry nods. On the parchment he writes: _I think McGonagall's consent rules are a good thing._

Malfoy rolls his eyes, but replicates the passage without any trouble.

_I'm looking forward to the snow._

_I'm looking forward to the snow._

_I hate that no matter what we do to stop them, people keep finding new ways to—_

"I don't actually want to be here all day, Potter. Do try and be concise."

_—hurt each other._

"Getting a bit specific, there."

"Do you agree or not, Malfoy?"

Malfoy looks at the parchment pensively. Harry resists the urge to tell him that _he_ doesn't want to be here all day _either_ and allows him to think, even though in Harry's view this isn't something that should take much thinking about.

 _I hate that no matter what we do to stop them, people keep finding new ways to hurt each other_ , Malfoy writes. The words shimmer and sink into the page.

Harry sends Malfoy a smile. Malfoy sends Harry a look of surprise.

"Oh, don't rush to give me your Order of Merlin," he says, flustered, faint dabs of pink appearing on his cheeks. "And please stop playing with your quill like that. You're getting ink on your fingers. It's irritating."

Harry holds up his hands—which, he notices, _are_ kind of inky.

 _I want to stop people from hurting each other at Hogwarts,_ he writes.

He chews on his thumbnail as he waits for Malfoy. Malfoy orders him to stop, but Harry tells him he'll stop when Malfoy writes his answer.

 _I want_ , he begins. Harry wonders what it is he thinks will show up on the page instead.

_I want to stop people from hurting each other at Hogwarts._

It sets. Harry looks at Malfoy, pleased. Malfoy looks back at him looking distinctly _dis_ pleased.

"Wanting doesn't mean I'm going to change my behaviour," he says. "Wanting to do something doesn't make it smart, or safe, or even _right_. There are lots of things people want to do that certainly shouldn't be done."

"Yeah, of course. It's just nice to know you care," Harry surprises himself with his honesty.

"I care about keeping my nose clean more than anything," Malfoy assures him.

It's still progress. And, Harry realises, it proves that Malfoy isn't behind any of the bathroom photographs. Not that he'd actually thought to suspect him in the first place. Progress as well, he muses, picturing Ron and Hermione's faces if he ever lets slip that he's now quite satisfied that Malfoy's not up to anything untoward.

*

It becomes clear to everyone _else_ that Malfoy isn't behind the photographs when Thursday's _Prophet_ arrives. Harry _is_ at breakfast this time, and can't escape the murmurs that rise like floodwaters around him as more and more students open their copies. Harry himself has flipped the rag open to check the scores for the Quidditch matches that weren't broadcast on the wireless.

He burns his eyes on the black and white figure in her little ink frame, inanimate and apparently unaware that she is being watched, though she faces forwards and has her eyes trained somewhere nearby the camera. The upper half of an unmistakeable Pansy Parkinson ascends from a bathtub, her chest covered only by a couple of tiny, winking stars, added by the gossip-mongers as though they provide the image with any real decency.  

Harry tears the paper in his haste to close it. It's what it deserves. He snatches Ron's copy before he can have the same experience.

"Hermione," he says, because he can't reach her on the other side of Ron. "Hermione, don't open the paper."

She meets his eyes, and hers widen at the urgency she finds there.

"It's Pansy," he says. "Parkinson. I know you don't like her, but she's— and Luna—"

"Harry—stop. I know," Hermione pauses halfway through extricating herself from her seat to frown at him. "I'm glad we're on the same page. I know she—"

"Tried to give me up to Voldemort?" he tries to crack a wry smile. "I don't think I can blame her. I thought it was a pretty fair trade too."

Hermione, thankfully, reacts with an eyeroll rather than a look of concern. She pushes her way through the breakfast crowd and Harry follows in her wake. Once they're at the front of the Great Hall they survey the other tables. To Harry's relief, Pansy doesn't seem to be there, and neither does Malfoy. Ron, having put away the last of his breakfast in a hurry, appears beside them a moment later.

"Hand?" Hermione asks. Ron offers the requested hand and she takes it with a nervous squeeze.

Harry spots Luna at the Ravenclaw table—less of a war meeting today, but still crowded with students sporting all four houses' colours. Ginny's beside her. Gin glances up and notices them, and before Harry can go to meet them she's tugging Luna their way.

"There's been some kind of mistake," is how Luna greets them.

"I hardly think it's a mistake," says Hermione. "It's a deliberate act of—"

"No, you don't understand," Luna interrupts. "They've got it wrong. It's not Pansy."

*

"They're not my tits," Pansy confirms.

They're standing around a touch awkwardly in the greenhouse, since this is where Pansy's patronus to Luna led them. _They_ are Harry, Ron, Hermione, Luna, Ginny, Pansy, Malfoy, and Neville who'd apparently been there before the others arrived.

"It's my face, yeah," Pansy continues, "but my tits are bigger."

Luna nods solemnly. "I knew the minute I saw the photo it wasn't right."

"What's not _right_ is that someone sent a naked picture of you to the paper, and they _printed it_ ," says Hermione.

"A naked picture that's _not_ me," Pansy corrects. "Have you been listening at all?"

"A naked picture that's supposed to look like you."

"Yes."

"Not that it isn't blasphemy to misrepresent your assets, Pans," Malfoy interrupts, loudly enough that they all shut up. "But now that we've established that the picture has been tampered with, I think what we need to talk about is how to find the people who did it, and how to sue the _Prophet_ and the fucking _lethifolds_ it calls lifestyle journalists until they can't afford enough ink to print another issue. I suggest that to find the culprits we need to ascertain the process by which the photograph was transfigured. I'm not aware of how frozen pictures can be altered when the subjects lack a magical signature to cast the spell upon that's separate from the paper they're printed on—"

Harry stares as Malfoy, enraged, rants about all the things they're going to do. The same Malfoy who, two mornings earlier, was adamant about not getting involved. He's gripping Pansy's arm more tightly than Luna's gripping her girlfriend's hand, and by Harry's reckoning Pansy granted him the permission to do this so that he'd stop fidgeting quite as much. His feet tap like they'd be pacing if he was willing to give up contact with his friend.

Harry thinks of the boy guarding the tiny blonde girl like he'd happily hex anyone who so much as looked at her wrong. Malfoy's got that same fiendfyre flash in his eyes. He won't involve himself on principle, but for the people he cares about he'll do anything that's required.

This is something Harry already knew about Draco Malfoy. Now, though, he wears this fierce, targeted loyalty outwardly, and he's doing it for a cause that's _good_ —

"Harry!" It's only when Hermione shouts his name right into his ear that he realises he's been distracted.

"Er, what?" he asks.

"You didn't tell us the picture was a Muggle photograph! This is important information!"

"Sorry," he mumbles. "I mean, I'm not the only one who saw it. And only for a second. And I've been trying to forget it ever since."

"Gosh, I'm _so_ flattered," Pansy drawls. "Isn't anyone going to ask _me_ what _I_ want to do about all this?" She gives Malfoy a pointed look.

"Pray tell, what would you have us do?"

" _Well, Draco_ , I'm not interested in suing the _Prophet_ for its last drop of ink, and frankly I'm disappointed that this is the solution you've suggested. I don't need money, and I don't need a reputation as the girl who shut down an institution in magical print media added to the one I've already got." She throws a meaningful glance at Harry.

Harry grimaces, shrugs.

"They have to pay somehow, though," Malfoy insists. "They can't get away with printing pictures like that. And faked ones, too."

"What _I'm_ going to do is sell an exclusive nude photoshoot and interview about the female body and how it's nothing to be ashamed of. And I'm _not_ going to sell it to Rita fucking Skeeter. Would the _Quibbler_ take it, babe?"

Luna beams. "Absolutely. I think it's a wonderful idea. Bodies are just nature. And they're very beautiful. Especially yours."

"Kiss me you sap," says Pansy, and Luna leans in eagerly.

Ginny clears her throat.

"Pans," Draco says, pacing now that he's relinquished his hold on Pansy's shoulder to Luna. "Pans, you can't let them make you put your tits in the paper!"

To Harry's relief, Luna pulls back from Pansy's mouth before she can forget the rest of them are there and descend into a complete snog session.

"I shouldn't let them _stop_ me from doing it either," Pansy argues. "It's just nobody would have wanted to publish them until they got all scandalous. You won't talk me out of this—I've got great tits, and it's been too long since there was anything great printed about me in the media."

Malfoy pinches the bridge of his nose. "If you're sure, Pansy," he says. "Just please, for me, sleep on it before you do anything impulsive?"

"For you, I'll agree to one sleep—which I hope you know is like a _year_ in lifestyle journalism."

"Yes, yes, love you too," Malfoy says, and Harry starts to wonder how he ever _couldn't_ see through his sarcasm.


	6. Drift

"I think it's good you're standing up for Pansy," Harry tells Malfoy.

All he gets is an incredulously lifted white brow and a, " _Pansy_?"

"Yes," he answers. "Pansy Parkinon. I think you've met her."

"Of course, you imbecile. And _I've_ been on a first name basis with her since we were children. For you, however, this is quite an unexpected development."

"She and Luna are dating. She told me I should call her Pansy."

"And if I told you to call me by my first name, would you do that?" Malfoy mutters. Harry's not sure whether he's meant to hear it or not, but he answers anyway:

"Maybe I would."

"Maybe you'd what?"

"Maybe I'd call you— Draco."

It isn't natural, doesn't roll of the tongue like _Malfoy_ does after the great deal of practice he's had at saying that name. It reminds Harry a little of saying Voldemort's name around people who didn't want to hear it said. Like he's been laid bare, somehow.

"Well. That sounded difficult."

"Shove off. You try it if you think it should be so easy," Harry challenges.

"Try what?"

"You're not that dumb, Mal— _Draco_."

"Fine," says Draco. "Fine." He appears to do a few vocal exercises, like a singer limbering up ready for a performance. Drama queen.

"I'm waiting."

"So impatient."

"So impatient... who?"

"So. Impatient. _Harry_."

"Weird, isn't it."

"Very disorienting."

They laugh together, and that's even stranger.

"I reckon we should keep at it, though," Harry suggests, upon finding himself reluctant to return to hearing his first name out of Draco's mouth after just one turn at it. "Weird everyone else out while we're at it. I can picture the look on Ron's face already."

"It's for a good cause, then," Draco shrugs, as if he doesn't care one way or the other. It's a charade that's never going to work; there are no meaningless moments of civility between them. Each and every one is historic.

*

Pansy talks about nothing but her photoshoot for the following week. She talks loudly enough that she can't hear those around her whispering about the picture in the _Prophet_.

"She's so happy about it you'd start to think she sent the picture herself," Ron says one day—a quiet observation, and not a serious one to Harry's ears.

That Draco hears it differently is evident from the way he storms over.

"Weasley!" he hisses. "Don't you _dare_ equate making the best of a bad situation with _enjoying it_."

"Woah," Ron holds his hands up. "I didn't _mean_ —"

"I understand if your Gryffindor sensibilities make you incapable of keeping your emotions under wraps, but not all of us are so transparent. You know nothing about how Pansy feels, and if you tell another soul that her way of coping makes her look _guilty_ I'll see to it that you find out how _you_ like _your_ arse crack in the paper even if the very thought of that image gives me hives."

"Malfoy," Ron says. "Hey, Malfoy. I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean it, I didn't think about it. I said something stupid and I won't again. Just don't talk about my arse crack again, yeah?"

"I'll be pleased never to mention it again," Draco replies, still holding Ron's eyes fiercely, until he's finally satisfied that Ron's repentant.

"Makes you think," he mutters to Harry once Draco's left them alone again.

"Mm," Harry agrees, not really sure what Ron's thinking about.

"Malfoy's always been a git, but maybe he's not such a bad friend."

"No. No, I don't think he is."

*

"I think we're becoming friends," Harry tells Professor Ngige, who sits across from him with a placidly attentive mind-healer expression on his face. "But I also think that surely—after everything—if we were going to be friends we'd have to... talk about it, or something. Decide on it."

"Why's that?" Ngige prompts, leaving Harry to sit back and think yet again about how to put his vague feelings into words that make any sense whatsoever.

"There's a lot to forgive, you know?" he says at last. "For either of us to just act like we're friends all of a sudden wouldn't be to... assume that we're forgiven for the things that happened."

"That's an interesting point, Harry," Ngige gives him a smile, and Harry feels a brief flash of accomplishment. "I think you are right: it would be best to talk with Draco. Tell him that he is forgiven for the things he did, and ask him to forgive you."

 _Is he forgiven?_ Harry wonders. For some of it, yes. But other things... things like what he said about Teddy just recently. Harry's not sure.

He's also not sure _he's_ forgiven. It can't be easy to forgive a person who almost sliced you right apart.

 

 

"Could Draco and I be friends?"

"He hasn't really stopped complaining about you, Harry," says a hesitant Neville, who's joined him, Ginny and Luna for tea today. Neville's tea is _actually_ tea. "In the greenhouse, I hear a lot of it if I'm honest."

"Oh." Harry adjusts himself on the grass and refreshes their warming charms to give himself something to do other than look disappointed. "I mean, he's still a git. So I guess it makes sense."

"Pansy complains about Draco all the time," Luna interjects. "It doesn't mean he's not friends with her."

"It's different when it comes from a place of knowing you love each other. I mean, me and Ron and George give each other hell—but it's 'cause we already know what's under that. You know?" Ginny's on her third cup of strong spiked tea, and it's clearly affecting her if she's talking about how she loves her brothers. Harry smiles at her, because it's a nice thing to get to hear.

"I think," Ginny starts up again, "that actually it's more like that he _likes_ you than that he likes you." She waggles her eyebrows. "He's been pulling your pigtails forever. And it's a shitty way to express your affections, but what other kind of way could you imagine Malfoy having?"

"Draco can be very earnest," Luna frowns. "Though I suppose he tends to be a bit... reactive, around Harry."

"A _bit_ ," Neville laughs.

"And you're the same," Ginny turns on Harry.

"Why are you attacking me like this?" he feigns injury. His head's a bit too whiskey-warm and fuzzy to really be offended, though he vaguely suspects he might be later.

"Because it's true, that's why! The two of you this year have been fighting like it's an excuse to get your hands on each other."

 

Harry can't stop thinking about Ginny's words. At first, he blames it on the alcohol—but then the alcohol works its way out of his system and he's left with a clear, if slightly achy head full of thoughts about Malfoy's fucking _hands_. A-fucking- _gain_. He's starting to wonder whether Gin is actually a master of some unusual Legilimency technique, wherein the caster plants ideas in their hapless victim's head by mentioning them. Or maybe it's hypnosis.

Harry hasn't really been with anybody besides Ginny. Sure, maybe there've been opportunities—especially post-war—but they haven't been opportunities Harry's actually _wanted_ to take up. He hasn't known what he's wanted, hasn't been ready to try and figure it out with any hands on research. Superficial feelings have never been enough to tempt him into bed with someone.  

And, well... _it's impossible not to feel something_ about Draco. Harry had said that himself. He feels off-balance without some Draco-related thing to try and process.

 

In the end, after a really poor night's sleep, he asks Draco. Because surely Draco is more likely to know the answer than anybody else.

"Are we friends?" he asks. They've both arrived at detention slightly early, somehow.

Draco snorts quietly. His hair's a mess this morning, Harry's noticed. It's distracting, the way it falls into his eyes. The softness of it balances out some of his angles.

"We spend Tuesday mornings together because we're _forced_ to. We've allied on the photograph thing because my friend's cause aligns with yours. We have a few mutual friends because Luna and Pansy are fucking. None of these things make _you and I_ friends. No longer hating each other quite so aggressively does not equate to liking each other."

"I reckon I like you, actually. Just a little bit."

Draco stares at him like he's grown at least one extra head. Pale eyebrows hang low over his eyes like they're trying to defend them from the sight of Harry right now.

"You're about eight years late in deciding to like me, Potter," he says eventually. Harry doesn't like the reversion to his last name, or the dull tone with which it's said.

"You're about eight years late in being likeable," he defends.

"Oh, I'm _likeable_ now, am I?" Draco scrutinises Harry for a moment. His eyes are on the offensive this time. Harry has no idea what he's looking for, so he doesn't try to project any impression in particular, just waits for him to finish. "This is a gay thing, isn't it," Draco concludes.

"What?" Harry says. Loudly; startled. "Why would you think that?"

"Because a few weeks ago you still wanted to pound my head into the ground. Then you find out we both like cock, and all of a sudden you're calling me _Draco_ instead of _Death Eater shithead_."

Harry's head spins. The word _cock_ on Draco's lips is... fuck.

"Your present speechlessness only proves my point," Draco goes on.

"Wait— no," Harry protests. "That's really not it. And I never called you Death Eater shithead."

A pale eyebrow arches sharply. "Oh, it isn't that? So you _would_ turn me down if I offered to suck you off?"

Harry's eyes dart feverishly to the door. Still none of the others have arrived, but McGonagall will be on time, which means she'll be here any second now.

"That's not what I—" he gulps, and curses Draco for saying something like that at the _beginning of an hour-long detention_.

From the growing smirk on Draco's face, he's well aware of what he's done.

Harry's flaming cheeks and the awakening throb in his groin are just how any guy would react, he's sure.

"Are you saying you _would_ offer, Malfoy?" Harry tries to turn the tables on him, but it comes out equal parts gruff and... hopeful, or something like it. Harry wants to take it back immediately.

Draco just fucking lounges back in his chair, the front two legs lifted off the floor, his own legs crossed carelessly.

"I might, in the context of a reciprocal arrangement."

"You're joking, right?"

"Only if you are, Potter. So, are you?"

"We can write it on the paper," Harry suggests, a little desperately.

"Whatever gets you off," Draco says, lazily, smiling with his teeth, as white and pointy as the rest of him.

"Why are you doing this?"

Draco shrugs smoothly. All of a sudden everything he does seems tailored for seduction. Or maybe it's just that _now_ Harry's interpreting it that way.

"I'm seizing an opportunity," he says. "There aren't all that many available to me these days."

"So that's what I'd be," Harry surmises, some of the heat draining out of him, leaving cold behind. "Just somebody convenient."

"Convenient. Yes, Harry, _convenience_ has always been your defining characteristic."

*

"I need your help," he says, pulling Ginny aside at lunch.

"Can I at least eat my sandwiches first?" she snaps.

"'Course." Harry knows better than to keep a snapping Gin from her food.

"Is it about Malfoy?" she asks, through a mouthful. Outside the Quidditch pitch she really is a terribly, wilfully ungraceful person. Harry loves her.

"Maybe."

"So it is, then."

"Yes, alright."

"If you have trouble telling me that whatever you have to say is about him, I don't have high hopes for your ability to actually tell me anything about whatever's happened now. Also, you might as well sit down. I'm going to need several more of these chicken sandwiches after Quidditch practice this morning."

"How's the team going?" Harry asks, sliding into the space Ginny makes for him beside her at the table. He misses Quidditch; eighth years aren't allowed to play, and thinking about it too much just ends up depressing him, but he does still want to know how Gryffindor is faring.

"We suck," Ginny declares unreservedly. "But we're going to get better. I'm working them hard."

Harry pities the poor players under her captaincy. She's worse than Oliver Wood these days—very serious about the game now that the Harpies have expressed an interest in her.

After four whole sandwiches she takes pity on him.

"Alright, let's go for a walk," she says, and leads him out of the Hall.

Harry casts a silencing spell around them.

"Merlin, Harry," Ginny says when she notices him doing it. "You haven't _killed_ Malfoy have you? You know I'll help you bury the body, but it's awfully suspicious to ask like this."

"I haven't killed him."

Ginny looks vaguely put-out. "What, then?"

"I think I— he sort of— well, suggested that we might. You know?"

"Yes, Harry, after that extremely specific explanation I couldn't possibly not know."

"He offered to blow me," Harry forces the words out in a garbled stream. "If I returned the favour."

Gin lets out a sharp, barking laugh. Her whole face is alight as they step outside the castle and into the yellow sunlight. Harry casts a warming charm on himself for some protection against the cold wind. He casts one on Ginny too, though she doesn't actually seem to care.

"Don't laugh," he begs her.

"I can promise you that I'll make no such promise."

Harry sticks his elbow out. Even though it glances off the air before it touches her it makes him feel a little better.

"So are you going to do it?"

"I don't know," says Harry.

"Well you obviously want to."

Harry isn't as sure of this fact as Gin is. He's curious, but he's not at all _confident_ in his desire to try out sex with Draco.

"You just want me to tell you that it's okay to do it. Honestly, Harry, you don't need other people's permission. Except Malfoy's, obviously. But that's all."

"You wouldn't hate me for it?" Harry asks honestly. "I reckon Ron would. And Hermione—he called her all those awful things."

"You weren't genuinely thinking about blowing him back when he was spouting pureblood Death Eater wannabe shit all the time," Ginny says with reassuring certainty.

"No," Harry agrees. "Blowing his head off, maybe. But not that."

"We've all noticed that he's different. Not exactly a nice guy, but not the wankstain he was either. Besides, it's not like he didn't do and say horrible things to you as well. You're entitled to get over that. It's not your personal responsibility to make sure everyone in Britain's over it too before you let him get you off."

Harry understands where she's coming from, and it's a tempting train of thought to board—but he's never been great at _not_ carrying the magical world on his shoulders. It's been there, held in place by too many people, ever since Hagrid first showed up and called him a wizard.

"Oi, look at me," Ginny orders. "Do you hate Luna for screwing Parkinson?"

Harry frowns. "No. Of course not."

"But Parkinson tried to give you up to Voldemort. Shouldn't you feel betrayed that she didn't ask your permission first?"

"I get it. I get it."

"Then you understand why I won't _give you permission_ or anything like that. You've got to decide, Harry. Decide, and let the rest of us figure out how we're going to deal with it, because that's what _we're_ entitled to. Personally, I'll be glad to see you two idiots stop fighting like crups and kneazles at every other moment, but that's just me."

Harry feels the tension in his shoulders unwinding.

"I'm drawing a line at giving blowjob advice, though," says Gin, and the look on her face is one of such exaggerated disgust that Harry finally feels loose enough to laugh.

"You've already taught me more than I wanted to know," he replies fondly. "Please let's talk about something else now?"


	7. Collision

The Hogsmeade trip he promised Pansy sneaks up on Harry—and Ron, and Hermione, and Ginny, who have also now been roped into coming along. Before he knows what's happening, Harry's being herded into the Hog's Head and pushed into one of the dimly lit booths there. On one side of him is Luna. On the other is Draco, who insists on pushing up their end so he's near enough to talk to Pansy.

The result is Draco's thigh pressing against Harry's, and it's approximately twelve thousand times more distracting than it should rightfully be.

"It's so weird to be able to touch again," Ron remarks, poking Hermione's arm for emphasis.

"We can touch on Hogwarts grounds too," Hermione says, with the exasperation of someone who has explained something so many times she can't remember a life free of the explanation. "Requiring consent is not a ban on touching."

"Sorry," says Ron. "Sorry, I know. And that's good too. But I like this," he strokes her arm absentmindedly. "Not having to say anything out loud just to be close to you."

Harry looks at the contrast of Ron's white, freckled fingers against Hermione's dark skin, dusted with even darker hair. He wonders whether Draco's hand would look like this touching him.

It's only been two days since Draco suggested... what he suggested, and only the fact that Harry went and told Ginny about it while it was fresh in his mind has stopped him from doubting it, like a half-asleep memory that may or may not have been a dream.

Draco's ankle is rubbing against Harry's. Draco's leg is rubbing against his because he can't seem to keep it still. His body is so very warm—and Harry's not sure how, but apparently he was expecting Draco to be cold, more like his demeanour, more like the reptilian mascot of his house.

"...want Harry?"

He startles at the sound of his name.

"Sorry, what?"

"What do you want, mate? I'm getting drinks," Neville asks, a touch impatiently—which means he must have been trying to get Harry's attention for a while.

"Butterbeer'll do thanks, Nev," he says, unable to think up a different answer quickly enough. At this rate it's probably for the best that he doesn't drink anything with alcohol in it.

"Distracted, Potter?" Draco murmurs out the corner of his mouth, barely even turning his head towards Harry.

Harry can't think of an answer—of _course_ he's distracted. Draco's now pretending he wants something out of his pocket, pressing his knuckles into Harry's thigh in a supposed attempt to get to it.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?" Harry asks. "Outside?"

"I need to piss, why don't you come along and say your piece," Draco suggests instead.

Harry, who hasn't yet thought about exactly what he plans to say, doesn't really have a reason to protest. They shuffle out of the booth and dodge the still relatively thin crowd of patrons on their way to the low-ceilinged, labyrinthine passage that leads to the loos. Harry walks behind Draco, watching the rhythmic swinging of his arms, the sharp cut of his jaw, the stiffness of his neck as he holds his head up and doesn't glance back at Harry.

Another curve and the passage opens up—though only very slightly. Grungy tiles replace the wooden floor and walls. Two sinks stand against the wall, two urinals, and a cubicle with a blue door that's currently swung out wide. There's a boy at one of the basins fixing his hair in the mirror, but he finishes up and scurries out.

"What was it you wanted to say?" Draco turns to face Harry. There's just barely enough floor space for the two of them to stand like this. Harry can feel Draco's breath on his face, hot and vaguely minty. Harry leans into it.

"I was..." he says, but forgets about the words instantly. They're not important. What's important is the way Draco is looking at him like he can see right through Harry's skin to the muscle and bone, the magic, the _soul_ underneath. Like he can see exactly what Harry's trying to want, and he's going to detangle it for him.

Draco advances—one small step is all it takes—and he's pressing Harry against the hard wall. The tiles are so cold at his back, and Draco Malfoy is all _heat_ pressed against the front of him. Harry's nose is up against his neck, and he can smell that Draco uses some kind of cologne. It's probably the kind of flashy, expensive thing Harry wouldn't spare a single look for in Diagon Alley, but right now he can't deny there's some element of allure to it.

His focus shifts when Draco's knee knocks one of his slightly to the side, and then settles itself in the space it's made. Draco's leg presses upward and Harry's abruptly glad for the support of the wall because his knees go a bit weak. Shivery heat shoots up from his groin to twist his stomach. It's a giddiness Harry would associate with executing sharp drops and loops on a broomstick.

Draco pauses, tilts his head back, and Harry realises he's trying to meet Harry's eyes. The grey of his own is molten-hot, seeming almost to trap the bathroom lights, dulling everything that isn't him in the process.

Harry wonders whether this is a good moment for him to kiss Draco. He thinks he'd like to try, at least. Draco's mouth looks soft, despite the thinness of his lips. He's about to press forward and try the kissing thing out when Draco's hands fall upon the waistband of Harry's jeans. He fumbles a bit, but soon those nimble fingers have found their way past the buttons and flies and are tugging the jeans down with thumbs hooked in their belt loops.

Harry's cock, already mostly hard, fills out in such a rush Harry feels a bit dizzy. Draco's hand skates along the waistband of his pants, flutters ever so lightly over the straining outline.

Harry lets out a malformed groaning noise of combined shock and need.

Draco steps back and pulls his wand out. If he plans to hex Harry while he's got his trousers down, he's going to succeed at it, because all Harry can really do is watch the swift movements of Draco's hands and mouth as he casts some kind of spell. His targets seems to be the floor and the door of the bathroom rather than Harry's bollocks, at least.

When Draco drops to his knees Harry knocks his head back against the tiles. It hurts, and Merlin only knows how clean it could possibly be, but he really, _really_ doesn't care right now. Not when Draco's rubbing steadily at his cock through his pants now, his thumb sweeping over what must be a growing damp patch in the top where the leaking head is just barely restrained by elastic.

Draco leans in and just _breathes_ over him, and Harry shudders. Fingers hook in Harry's waistband and his pants are dragged down his thighs, allowing his cock to spring free. Harry's cock, dark and flushed and very erect, right in front of Draco's face. He can feel that minty breath on his bare skin now.

It's all happening very fast, he notes, rather distractedly. Not that he's opposed to it—not at all—but he really has no idea what this _is_ to Draco. What Draco will expect from him in return. In a few minutes Harry might find himself giving his first blowjob with his knees on the tiles where his feet are currently.

The thought makes him a touch nervous, but he's not... well. It's something he's wanted to try sooner or later. He's not _opposed_ to it. Especially not when Draco's tongue flicks out to make contact with the head of his cock. Harry will buy more of this feeling with whatever reciprocation Draco asks for it.

Draco keeps licking, first concentrating on the tip and then tracing the vein on the underside down to the root. He sucks one of Harry's balls into his mouth, tonguing it almost inquisitively before letting it go and mouthing at his shaft again. He takes the head in, _sucks_ , and then pulls off just to hear Harry whimper. The second time he puts Harry's cock in his mouth, Draco slides down, enveloping it in velvety heat. There's a slight scrape of tooth, but Harry doesn't mind it. He doubts he could have Draco Malfoy without that hint of pain, that cliff's-edge flirtation with danger.

Draco pulls off, breathes deeply and then descends once more, taking Harry even further. He seems to cough around him a little bit, and retreats a half-inch or so, but Harry barely notices. He's too close to care. So close he should probably warn Draco somehow that—

He's tensing, shuddering through his orgasm before he can figure out exactly what signal he ought to give. Draco pulls off, and the last spurts of come dribble onto Harry's own hand as he seizes his dick for a last few desperate pumps.

"Sorry," Harry pants. "Sorry."

Draco, a slightly revolted look on his face, darts over to the nearest urinal. He spits into it, which isn't very sexy in and of itself—but in context, as part of a sequence of events in which Harry has come in Draco's mouth, isn't really _un_ sexy either.

Harry hears him cast a few hurried _Scourgifies_ , and then take a few deep breaths to steady himself before he turns back around to where Harry's still standing like an idiot with his pants around his knees.

Draco flicks his wand and the cold tingling of cleaning charms rushes over him too. It only touches the surface of his skin, though. It can't reach the deep, honey-glow of satisfaction trickling through him.

He expects Draco to come back over to him, all confidence like before, and to push Harry to his knees, but he does no such thing.

"You should go back out," he tells Harry in a voice that _is_ sharp and cold enough to penetrate his post-orgasmic haze. "Everyone will be wondering where we are."

"What about—"

Harry doesn't get an answer, because Draco makes for the cubicle at the end of the little bathroom and promptly shuts himself in it.

If Harry had been uncertain before, he's not sure he'll ever understand how he's meant to interpret this whole experience.

*

He doesn't tell Gin about it. He doesn't tell _anyone_ about it. It doesn't feel right. He _thinks_ about it, though. It goes round and round in his head and even when he gives in and has a guilty wank about it, the thoughts never stay out of focus long. It's one of those things that can't be reversed, he thinks. He'll never again live in a world where he, Harry Potter, hasn't put his dick in Draco Malfoy's mouth.

Has never come embarrassingly hard and fast with zero warning into said mouth.

Merlin, it's no wonder Draco shooed him off. He probably expected Harry to have sufficient experience to do well at this sort of thing. To know how to handle himself during sex. Harry knows a few things, but it turns out that nothing much can prepare a person for receiving a spontaneous blow job from a Malfoy in the men's at the Hog's Head, much as learning to ski doesn't prepare a person for an avalanche.

Seeing Draco on Tuesday is an inevitability for which Harry prepares as best he can. He'll be a Gryffindor about it, he decides; he'll confront the problem head on. Ask what went wrong. Suggest that they talk about it. This plan may or may not correspond with the advice given to him by Professor Ngige—in response, of course, to a wholly hypothetical scenario not even tangentially related to blow jobs.

He can kind of see why it's best to talk about sex before you go ahead and do it. He definitely doesn't talk to Hermione about it; he can feel her disappointment in him already, before she's even had the opportunity to feel it for herself.

It's just... if Draco had had to form the words, _Harry, can I suck you off beside the sinks in the men's_ in order to do what he did, he doubts it would have happened.

Awkward though it was, Harry doesn't wish it hadn't happened. Only that it had happened better.

When detention comes around, it's clear that Harry's Gryffindor approach will be the only thing that gets them talking about it. Draco seems content to ignore the issue completely.

"Morning," he says when he arrives and sits down next to Harry. He scowls at the classroom's other inhabitants, but turns an expression of tolerance on Harry. It's... flattering, somehow, Harry supposes.

"Hi."

"What do you fancy listing for the Headmistress' reading pleasure today?" Draco asks, conversationally. "I don't suppose you've travelled overseas much?"

"Er, no," Harry answers. If Draco were a polite stranger to Harry then his demeanour wouldn't have raised any red flags at all, but 'polite stranger' is the perfect opposite of what they have always been to one another.

"We can do places we'd like to travel, then—"

"Draco," Harry says, hand outstretched but, obviously, not managing to land on Draco's forearm the way he instinctually wants it to. "Please, can we talk about it?"

"About what?"

"You _know_ about what, you arsehole," Harry hisses. "I'm sorry I went and... made it weird. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it. You said you'd want me to, er, return the favour, though. At least give me the chance to do that."

Draco sniffs, but to Harry's relief he deigns to discuss the dreaded topic. "A little warning would have been nice, yes," he says. "But I'll thank you not to presume to know what I have and have not enjoyed."

Harry runs the statement through his posh wanker translator. "Are you telling me you _did_ enjoy it, then?" he asks, further lowering his voice. "Excuse me if I don't usually take a bloke running away and locking himself in a toilet before I can touch his cock as a sign that he's having a good time with me."

"Find yourself in that situation often?" Draco sneers, but the acid in his voice is too diluted with anxiety to do any harm.

Harry rolls his eyes. "Oh, yeah. All the time. So, do you mean to tell me you _did_ enjoy it?"

Draco shrugs, and mumbles, "I didn't _not_ enjoy it."

Harry hadn't known how much tension he'd been holding in his chest since the Hog's Head mishap. He feels it unwinding now at this reassurance.

"Would you not _not_ enjoy it if we, er, tried it again sometime?" Harry suggests, emboldened by relief.

Draco nods.

"We'll have to get better at talking about it, though."

"If you expect it to happen before the next Hogsmeade visit, then _obviously_ ," says Draco. He sounds... tired, all of a sudden. And more like himself than when he'd come into the room. Harry's happy to have him back.

"So, you were saying something about travelling," he steers them back on track as McGonagall sends their writing implements hurtling over.


	8. Acceleration

The blow job is the only thing they've really negotiated thus far, so it's how they continue on. All they have to say is,

"Want me to suck you off again?" and "Yeah," and they're away.

"What should I do to warn you, though?" Harry asks breathlessly as Draco peels layer by layer of clothing off him—robes, trousers, pants.

"Tap me on the shoulder," Draco suggests. "If my oral skills really inhibit yours so severely that you can't use your words." He doesn't sound very interested in the matter, though. Not for someone who pulls the face of displeased surprise that he did when he last sucked Harry off and ended up with an unexpected load of come in his mouth.

It matters to Harry, though. It's much easier to relax and enjoy the brushing of Draco's lips over the tip of his cock now that he's got it sorted out. Draco licks him slowly— _kisses_ him, more than anything else. The kind of kiss Harry could imagine taking part in lying outside in the grass somewhere, or on the sand at the beach, either way under radiant sunlight.

The little wet sounds bounce off the walls of the prefects' bathroom as Draco works him. The lights are out, and Harry can only see Draco's head down below him with the help of a pale _Lumos_. Draco's breath seems loud in here, too. Almost as loud as Harry's pulse, thundering in his ears. It's hardly odd for him to be sneaking around the castle in the middle of the night, but it's well beyond odd for him to be doing it so that he and Draco can... well.

Draco's mouth migrates down the side of Harry's cock. His lips are so wet and slippery with saliva. Harry groans despite his efforts to keep himself quiet. At the sound, however, Draco's ministrations become more urgent—he licks his way back up Harry's length and then swallows him down without any further preamble.

Harry lets out a loud, high whine. He can't help it. And he can't help making the noise again when Draco groans around him, the velvety insides of his cheeks rumbling, the head of Harry's cock rubbing against his soft palate. Draco sinks down further, and this time he doesn't choke and pull back. He still gags a little bit (and Harry feels bad about enjoying the convulsing of Draco's throat as much as he does) but he weathers it, works through it by drawing back off an inch and then pressing forward again, working Harry gradually deeper. He's breathing hard through his nose, and Harry can feel the dark, curling hairs at his groin shifting with it when Draco pushes down further still.

"Fuck," says Harry. "Oh, fuck. Fuck, that's— fuck."

Draco pauses, and for a terrible moment Harry thinks he's going to pull right off so his mouth is free to issue insults. Draco settles for looking up at him from under his fine, pale lashes and mocking Harry's extreme eloquence with his eyes.

"Feels so good," Harry tries. It's a better effort. "So good, Draco."

Draco groans louder and longer this time, apparently well pleased with Harry's commentary.

Harry feels like this is a moment where Draco's hands could be useful. He could be grabbing Harry's arse, working the base of his cock, pressing half-moons into Harry's thighs with his nails. He'd have to ask to do those things, though, if he wanted to.

Or Harry could just give him permission.

Like the warning was last time they did this, the request is in Harry's mouth, but it's stuck somewhere behind his back teeth.

Harry forgets all about this when Draco starts swallowing him down even more frantically, like he's really starving for Harry's dick and nothing but the whole of it at once will satisfy him.

"I'm going to—" he grunts, "—s-soon."

Draco's eyes flick up at him in acknowledgement, but he keeps sucking—sucks even _harder_ if anything.

It's mere seconds before Harry's coming, his whole body tensing, eyes screwing shut as the pleasure overtakes him. It's better than last time. Draco keeps tonguing him right through it, and when Harry opens his eyes again Draco's stare is right there ready to catch them. Harry feels abruptly raw, oversensitive, and very naked for someone who was already not wearing anything on his bottom half.

Draco still spits Harry's come out, but he walks sedately over to a basin in which to do this, and he doesn't seem half as disgusted as before. Harry can't help but wonder what it's like—whether it's really awful or whether it's just a preference thing. What his preference might be.

"Do you want me to—" he begins, but then Draco turns around and Harry can see his trousers are open at the belt. Draco's hand is tugging at his own erection, and Harry can see the reddened head of his cock, glinting slightly when the wandlight hits it at the right angle. Draco's cock is long, and so fucking _hard_ that it knocks out the small amount of breath Harry's lungs have managed to recapture since his orgasm hit. Draco hasn't got this hard in the space of a few seconds: he really _must_ have enjoyed going down on Harry. Knowing this makes Harry want to try it more—and not just out of curiosity, or a sense of fairness. He _wants_ , with a visceral tug of longing, to know what it feels like to wrap his mouth around Draco.

"Merlin, that's hot," Harry says aloud, completely by accident.

Draco stares at him. His hand works faster and faster, and his bottom lip's caught between his teeth, and he's emitting the kind of tiny whining noises that can only come from the back of a person's throat, and can only be—at least for the most part—involuntary.

Draco comes with a cry, and his knees almost buckle. Harry rushes forward on instinct to catch him, even though he can't do it physically without asking, can't do it magically when his wand's not in his hand. Draco keeps himself upright, but staggers over to the bench near the lockers, where he soon slumps, boneless.

"What can I do for you, then?" Harry asks.

Draco heaves a long sigh. "Dunno," he mumbles. "I want to go to bed."

"Alright," Harry tries to mask his disappointment. He thinks he does okay. "I'll walk you back to your common room."

Draco frowns at him. "All the way to the dungeons? There's no need for that."

 _I want to_ , Harry doesn't say, because he'll definitely be asked _why_ , and he doesn't have an answer.

*

Pansy and Luna's article upstages the nude leak as the scandal of the month, as expected.

"I've been asked out three times today," she boasts, slouching in a Gryffindor common room armchair besides Luna, opposite Harry and Ginny. Ron was with them up until five minutes ago, but then Hermione came back from the library high on the accomplishment of finishing a major Ancient Runes assignment, and they've gone off to do things Harry prefers not to think about.

"Excluding propositions," Pansy continues.

"How many of those?" Luna asks serenely. Harry thinks he'd be a bit jealous, in her position, but the attention makes Pansy happy, and clearly that's what matters to Luna.

"Verbally, seven. But Terry Boot stared at me so hard in Potions I feel like I need a morning-after potion."

Ginny makes a gagging noise.

"Want to make it eight? I've been feeling a bit peckish," Luna says, still so serenely that Harry nearly misses the fact she's asking Pansy if she can— if they—

"Get a fucking room," Ginny rolls her eyes at them both.

"Yours or mine?" Pansy asks Luna, holding up a hand. "May I?"

Luna nods, and holds out her hand for Pansy to tug her along by. Harry hears them falling over each other as they climb out of the portrait hole.

"Are we the only two people in the castle who aren't getting laid?" Ginny grumbles at Harry when they're gone.

"Er," Harry fumbles for something to say that isn't, _oh, actually Draco Malfoy sucked my dick just last night and the next time I see him I'm definitely asking to blow him back_. "You have a— you have boyfriends! _Two_ of them!"

"Yeah, but they're being idiots right now. Haven't spoken to them in a couple of days, haven't got off with them in longer."

"Is there... anything you want to talk about?" Harry asks, really hoping that there isn't.

"With you?" At least he seems to be able to make her laugh. "Harry, I love you but I'm standing firm in my promise _never_ to take your relationship advice."

Harry will concede that this is fair. When he was with Ginny he'd failed comprehensively at romance, failed to indicate what he really wanted when they slept together, and, panicking at the idea of them breaking up, insinuated that they could get married instead. It'd been one of the stupider ideas he's ever had, and with his history that's no joke.

"Touché," he says in summary. "You can just talk, though. I swear I won't try to advise you."

Ginny gives him a grateful smile. "Nah, we'll sort it out," she says. "But thanks."

There are footsteps on the stairs that lead to the girls' dorms, and as Harry turns around he sees Ron and Hermione emerging. Ron looks very flushed, and Hermione's in the process of winding her hair up into a loose bun.

"That was _very quick_ ," Ginny laughs.

Ron looks like he's trying to decide what to say and failing, his cheek and his ears getting redder and redder. Hermione breezes past him and takes a seat, primly, as if she hasn't heard the remark at all.

"I had another thought about the photographs," she says.

"What, just now?" asks Ron.

"Multitasking. Anyway, we know that they're Muggle pictures, which means that transfigurative spells wouldn't have worked on them. _But_ I remembered that a friend of my Dad's is in fashion journalism and uses editing software to touch up pictures for his magazine."

"Like photoshop?" Harry asks.

"Exactly, Harry. Have you ever used it? We don't have it at home."

Harry shakes his head. He remembers hearing about it, vaguely, and little else.

"Are you saying it's a Muggleborn who's done it?" Ginny asks.

"No, but it's probably someone with Muggle family. That includes half-bloods," she reminds them.

"But you want to rule out purebloods?" Gin sounds doubtful.

"Maybe some pureblood's using Muggle technology as a cover," Ron suggests.

"I think it's... unlikely that a pureblood could do this alone," Hermione says. Harry, thinking of how the Weasleys all are with Muggle stuff, agrees. "But it's possible they're working together with someone. It's also less likely to be a pureblood because Pansy was the target."

"What about the others? They weren't all purebloods, or Slytherins, or people from families with Death Eater sympathies," Harry points out. "All they seem to have in common is that they're girls. And they were all receptive to the rules about consent."

"I didn't hear anything about it from that Slytherin kid, though," says Ron. "Did anybody?"

There's a round of shaken heads. Harry has no idea _why_ that girl could have been chosen. Sure, people've been attacking Harry since he was eleven, but this isn't the same as that. For one, it's not a dark lord to blame now—and then there's the disturbingly sexual element, which doesn't translate.

"I haven't heard any of the other victims saying the photos didn't look like them," muses Hermione. "I should ask them."

"Er," Harry suddenly has visions of Hermione holding a clipboard and surveying the subjects of the other photographs on how accurately the humiliating pictures reflect their anatomies. "Maybe we should bring McGonagall in on this. She might be able to talk to them about it without it feeling quite so..."

"Nosy? Pushy? Creepy?" Ginny supplies helpfully.

"Invasive," Hermione rephrases. "Yes, I can see how it'd be different talking to an official staff member rather than a fellow student."

"You could ask Lydia, at least," says Ron.

Hermione shakes her head. "She's already talked to me about it quite a bit. And she never questioned their accuracy—only how the picture could have been taken. She was fairly adamant that she'd have noticed if anyone was lurking near the showers, given the angle of the shot."

"They should have DMLE officers investigating this. Honestly," says Gin.

"Unless there's any other evidence, there's not much they can do. Depending on how these photos came to exist, it's not even a crime."

"It bloody well should be," Ron nearly growls. His protective hand hovers above Hermione's arm until she mouths a soft _go ahead_ , smiling fondly into the words.

"The law in this area is very patchy. If the culprits are underage, it's really unlikely there'll be a prosecution. And, since Muggle technologies are involved, the more specific Magical law provisions restricting transfiguration of photographic subjects, printing frames from memories, and that sort of thing won't apply."

*

Harry catches Draco on the way into dinner.

"Got a sec?" he asks.

"No," Draco says, but waits for him to speak anyway.

"I was thinking it might be a nice night up the Astronomy Tower." It's completely overcast, so nobody will be the least bit interested in looking at the stars.

"A nice night for what, precisely?" Draco cocks a brow.

Harry waggles his eyebrows in what he hopes is a suggestive fashion. "For you to let me give back a little of what I've been getting."

Huddled close against the students pushing into the dining hall around them, Harry can hear Draco's breath whoosh out of him.

"I suppose," Draco says, trying to sound nonchalant. His eyes flash at Harry so intensely a shiver runs through him.

"I'll meet you there at eleven?"

"That sounds fine."

They both know full well that it sounds more than fine. Harry goes to sit with his friends at the Gryffindor table, but barely touches his food. His insides are buzzing with nervous anticipation of what's going to happen in a few hours' time. He hopes his technique turns out to be okay—hopes that Draco won't refuse to fool around with him any longer if Harry turns out to be shite at blowing him.

 

Harry shows up ten minutes late. He doesn't like the idea of looking _over_ eager; Draco'd be sure to rib him about that for ages. Famous Harry Potter, just _desperate_ to suck on a Malfoy's dick. As a result, Draco is already there when Harry arrives. He's leaning against the wall, arms crossed over his chest against the cool breeze that leaks in through a few gaps in the stone.

"Look who decided to show," he says irritably.

"Delayed gratification," Harry snarks.

"Quite. Are you going to go ahead and gratify me, then?" Draco unfolds his arms and uses them to make a vague gesture in the direction of his crotch.

"I'm going to try," Harry says honestly. "Can't help it if you Malfoys are notoriously hard to please, though."

"It's hardly Advanced Potions, Harry. I'll talk you through it if need be."

Harry nods. "Where would you have me start?" he prompts.

Draco points at the hard ground in front of him. "There," he says, and suddenly his voice is full of command. Not quite the arrogant sort he used to display, and certainly not a sort that functions to malign Harry—this Draco simply sounds like he knows what he wants, and what he wants is Harry, right there on his knees. The slow thrum of anticipation through Harry's body turns into a rush southward, until his pulse is more insistent in his cock than his chest.  

Harry drops down none too carefully, the sharp ache of his kneecaps hitting stone just an added sensation.

"It might help to undo my belt," Draco continues, just as firmly.

Harry reaches into Draco's robes to find his belt, unbuckles it with fingers that _thank Merlin_ manage not to be too fumbling.

"Buttons. Flies."

Harry twists the button at the waist of Draco's dress trousers carefully until it pops back out through its corresponding hole. He could do it with magic, but he doesn't want to. What he wants is to savour the brush of his knuckles over Draco's burgeoning erection as he unbuttons, and again as he unzips.

Draco pushes his own trousers down, and Harry feels a little thrill knowing that Draco's just as keen to see them off as Harry himself is. Draco drops his own pants as well, and then Harry's eye to eye with his stiffening penis. It could be harder, though; could be flushed a darker pink, could curve upwards more at the head. Harry knows he could make it that way.

"Can I use my hand a bit?" he asks.

"Go ahead."

Harry reaches for Draco's cock with a slowness that's half nerves and half the desire to savour the experience. He's never touched someone else's cock before—not a real flesh-and-blood one, anyway. Ginny's toys weren't quite the same as this. For one thing, he notes as his fingers close around the shaft, it's warmer. It pulses under his hand. It jerks as Draco whines at the contact. Harry grips him tighter, rubbing his thumb over the wet end and enjoying being the direct cause of the fucking _shudder_ that knocks Draco back against the wall for support.

Harry runs his palm over the head and smears the precome he finds there down over the side. He pumps his hand gently, although it's still a little too dry.

He can think of one solution to this.

"Can I..." he looks up at Draco, who's staring down at him with his mouth open, lips wet and glistening.

"Yeah. Suck me off, Potter."

Harry angles Draco's cock toward his mouth. It seems quite a lot larger now that he's thinking about trying to fit it all in there, but he resolves to go slowly. He laps at the beading precome and finds the taste... odd. Not what he'd expected, hardly delicious, but somehow not unpleasant either. He lets his tongue press more firmly against Draco on the next lick, sweeping over his urethral opening, wriggling the tip against the slit to see if he can work it inside at all.

" _Shit_ ," Draco groans. "Do that again. Keep doing that."

Harry acquiesces.

He continues until Draco's cock is completely hard—and until he's too eager to find out what other kinds of noises he can draw from Draco to keep teasing him the same way any longer.

Harry sucks the head into his mouth and hears Draco's skull crack back against the wall. Harry lowers himself further, keeping his lips tucked over his teeth. It's a lot of things to think about—much more focus than a handjob, he thinks. But there's something more satisfying about it, too. He knows how much he prefers a blow job to a wank, and the knowledge of how much he's turning another person on has always been enough to get Harry a good portion of the way off. There's something about the fullness of his mouth, too, the taste on his tongue, this position on his knees, that's unexpectedly erotic. His own swelling dick is starting to feel uncomfortably cramped in the front of his trousers.

He reaches down and, through sheer force of will rather than any particular dexterity, gets his trousers undone and pulls his cock out. He's so relieved he groans around Draco, feeling the vibration of the sound around his mouthful.

He wanks himself in time with the slow movement of his mouth up and down Draco's shaft. More sounds rise from his throat involuntarily, and each one he lets out is answered by a needy whine from Draco.

"Can you take it any deeper?" Draco asks, voice thready but still much more held together than Harry can imagine being right now.

Harry tries, but he shoves himself forward too suddenly. For a moment his throat feels _so full_ , and his nose is full of the musky scent of Draco, pressed right up against his blond curls, and Harry's so completely overwhelmed by sensation that the rest of the room—hell, the rest of the world—doesn't exist. When he chokes, it's on instinct that he pulls back, strings of spit webbing the space between his lips and Draco's cock. He sits back on his haunches and he's present in the room again.

"Sorry," Draco says. Then, "Can I put my hands in your hair?"

Harry nods, and Draco reaches down to run his fingers through the messy black waves. His nails scratch lightly over Harry's scalp, especially at the nape of his neck. Harry leans into it.

"I didn't mean to push you," Draco apologises as he strokes Harry reassuringly. It's not how Harry would have imagined Draco to act while receiving head. "This is supposed to feel good on both ends, not just mine."

Harry thinks about how, for a second, he'd lost his grip on everything, swept away by the pressure in his throat, the fluttering of the muscles there. He wants to try it again—to stay in that space for longer, to let go and lose himself in this one task.

"It, er—it did," he says, suddenly a little ashamed, because he figures he probably should be if he enjoys literally choking on some other bloke's cock. "Can I try it again?"

Draco's hands tighten in his hair as he says this, and it gives Harry an idea.

"Can you keep your hands in my hair?" he asks, "and sort of... hold me there? So I don't reflexively jerk back so much?"

"Fuck," says Draco. There's a hint of laughter on the gust of breath that carries the word out of his mouth. "Fuck, yes alright Harry. Would it help if I tugged you back and forward?"

"Might do," Harry shrugs. "I'm willing to try it out."

"What the fuck," Draco whispers. His fingers brush lightly, almost affectionately, over Harry's cheek near his ear, and then they're tightening again, harder fists that hold Harry's head up even when he relaxes his neck. "Of fucking course you're perfect at this too."

Harry's not sure that Draco knows quite what he's talking about, given that Harry hasn't done all that much yet, but the praise still fizzes in his belly, mixing warmly with the arousal he already felt.

He can't lean forward far enough to recapture Draco's cock in his mouth, but when he reaches for it with his tongue Draco gets the message and guides him forward. He gives Harry a few seconds to properly fit the head back between his lips, and waits for Harry to flick his eyes up at him in confirmation before he presses, inexorably, into Harry's mouth. His hips jerk slightly, but his hands are steady as they hold Harry's head in place. Harry relaxes into it completely as the velvety shaft skates over his tongue and into his throat.

Draco draws back before he gets deep enough to trigger the gag reflex, and Harry's almost disappointed. The feeling is short-lived, at any rate: the next time Draco fucks forward into Harry's mouth is firmer, more actual thrust than torturous slide. He pulls back and shoves in again, and again, each time very slightly faster than the one before, and each travelling deeper into Harry's throat. Soon he's right on the edge of gagging, breathing heavily through his nose, and there's nothing in the world except the moment he's in and the cocktail of things it makes his body feel.

He chokes properly and Draco holds him there for a second before drawing back so Harry can heave in a few breaths and thrusting in again, not quite as far. He keeps taking Harry to the cliff's edge, teasing him but not pushing him over. Harry's eyes water, and his chin is wet, his lips and his throat wide around the intrusion.

Harry's barely conscious of his hand rubbing frantically at his own cock until he's tensing and spilling over, groaning around the not-insubstantial portion of Draco's dick that's in his mouth in that instant.  

Draco lets out a cracked wail and rips Harry off his prick a little _too_ roughly. Harry understands when come splatters the front of his robes, though. Draco's orgasm had caught him by surprise because _watching Harry come_ had fast-tracked it.

Even as he becomes conscious of the ache in his knees, his jaw, his neck and shoulders, the glow of pride inside Harry at what he's managed to do has him feeling better than he has done in ages.


	9. Discovery

"Mate, I'm not _that_ thick," is what Ron says when Harry denies his accusation that he's been grinning all morning. "You know I'll find out about whatever it is sooner or later. Even if I don't figure it out, Hermione will, and she'll tell me."

Harry's not entirely sure that she would, if he asked her not to, but he's not going to bet on it given how wrapped up in each other his two best friends are these days. Considering this, it's nice to have an afternoon to himself with Ron while Hermione studies for Arithmancy with a couple of seventh-year Ravenclaw girls Luna introduced her to.

They're going to toss a Quaffle around, since the weather's decent: cold but clear, not so wet or windy they won't have fun up in the air.

"Yeah," Harry relents. "I guess I'm feeling different. Better. But I can't really tell you more than that. It isn't all mine to tell."

"Alright," Ron says, a little dubiously and a little smugly. "So long as you realise you _are_ going to have to spill sooner or later."

Harry's not really thought about how he would go about telling anyone about whatever it is he's doing with Draco. Every step of the way so far he's half assumed will be the end of it, so the thought of telling people at _all_ hasn't been entertained in a serious way. He still doesn't think it should be. They've just been doing each other favours, haven't they?

"Did you see the Cannons came pretty close last match?" Ron, bless him, changes the subject. In a flood of affection, Harry's reminded just why Ron's been his best mate from square one.  

"Close?" He laughs. "They lost by eighty points."

"Exactly!"

*

"We should meet in the Astronomy Tower again tonight," Harry suggests.

They're in detention again, quill-tips shining with ink. So far they've agreed that they don't support various Quidditch teams, they're fans of long hair on men, they've each sent at least one letter to Viktor Krum in the years since the ill-fated Triwizard Tournament, and they both prefer the cold to the heat.

"You're insatiable," murmurs Draco. It's not a no.

"You're not keen, then?"

Draco rolls his eyes. "We might want to meet somewhere different; it's set to be a good stargazing night."

"Prefects' bathroom?" The bathroom's not Harry's favourite option, but at least they can have a good soak afterwards instead of relying on a round of _Scourgifies_.  

"Eleven o'clock," Draco confirms. "Now don't you think we should find some more commonalities? It's been a slow morning; we only have seven so far."

"Sure. How about... we both get off on giving head. That's true, isn't it?" Harry asks, fixing Draco with the most challenging gaze he can summon with sleep still stuck in the inner corners of his eyes.

Draco's hand falters and his freshly dipped quill flicks against the lip of the bottle, spraying ink. " _Bollocks_ ," he swears. "Harry, even if that's true it's hardly for McGonagall's eyes."

"I doubt she even reads them at this point," Harry shrugs. "She's busy and the lists are pretty boring. I'm happy not to write it down if you'll just answer me, though."

"Why bloody ask when you already know the answer?"

"Maybe I want to hear you say it."

There are a few droplets of ink on Draco's chin, and some smeared over his lips as he purses them, rubs them together, licks them. Harry's not sure if he should tell him or not; Draco's bloody attractive when he's a bit of a mess.

"Hear me say what, that sucking another man's cock gets me hard as a rock?" Draco whispers. "Or that I came in my sodding pants kneeling for you on the floor of an insalubrious pub bathroom."

Harry's blown the _fuck_ away, and he's so distracted by the sharply focused images Draco's words call to mind that it's a while before he notices Draco looks just as taken aback at his own admission.

"Why did I say that?" he says, a waver in his voice. "I didn't _want_ to say that. It's so humiliating I'd rather never talk about it. And I didn't mean to say that _either_!"

Harry reads the mounting panic on Draco's face and looks at him steadily, calmly. "Can you stop talking?"

Draco presses his lips together, looking at Harry with wide eyes. There's fear in them, and Harry hates the sight of it. It makes him want to panic himself.

"Professor!" he yells, and all heads in the quiet room turn to face him. "Something's wrong!"

Then he picks up a wand and casts a privacy spell around Draco. At least that way if words keep falling out of his mouth, no one will hear them. Harry's not exactly keen on the thought of the others in the room hearing about the things he and Draco have been up to in secret, either.

McGonagall is beside them in a few long strides.

"He's been talking involuntarily," Harry explains.

The Headmistress takes one look at Draco and seems to come to a conclusion.

"Mr Potter," she says, "please send a Patronus to Professor Slughorn asking him to come immediately, and to bring a bezoar."

"He's been poisoned?" Harry says, alarmed.

"Judging by his symptoms and the colour of his lips, I am given to believe he has ingested a small amount of ink." Her gaze softens. "He'll be fine. Cast your Patronus, please."

Harry does. He's done it in more stressful situations than this, he reminds himself. He's done it when his grasp on happiness was much weaker.  

Meanwhile, McGonagall lifts Harry's privacy spell and casts a new one around the three of them. She repeats her diagnosis for Draco himself to hear, assuring him that no harm will come to him.

"But Professor," Harry interrupts. "Why would _ink_ affect someone this way?"

"It's not normal ink. Keep up," Draco says—not meanly, just... _honestly_ , which hurts a bit more. "It's a potion. Probably a relative of Veritaserum since I can't stop my bloody tongue from flapping."

"Why does there need to be potion in the ink if the parchment is charmed?"

"It _isn't_ ," Draco goes on. "It certainly makes me feel better that despite all your fame you're nearly always slower on the uptake than I am."

"So you lied to us, Professor," Harry concludes.

"To ensure you would not tamper with the equipment."

Before anyone can get properly angry, Slughorn totters through the door, nearly catching his shoulder on the frame.

"I'm here!" he declares. "You said it was an emergency!"

McGonagall holds out a hand, into which Slughorn slaps what must be the bezoar, contained in a little drawstring bag.

"Thank you, Horace," she says, taking the stone out immediately and giving it to Draco.

"How else can I assist?" Slughorn asks. He's panting a bit. Harry's glad.

"That will be all, Horace. We all appreciate your quick response."

"Oh, all right," Slughorn says with weak joviality. "Well, I'm pleased to have wrapped up this little situation so easily. Minerva. Harry, dear boy." He pointedly ignores Draco.

"Not such a good collectible anymore," Draco mutters, glaring at Slughorn's back.

"Lucky you," says Harry.

McGonagall sends Harry with Draco to the hospital wing so that Madam Pomfrey can check that all the ink-potion (somewhat less designed for human consumption even than ordinary ink) has been neutralised and there won't be any lasting effects. After much ado, Pomfrey hands Draco a stomach-settling potion to treat the post-bezoar hangover (Harry doesn't listen as she and Draco chat about the exact effects of the magical substances in Draco's system and how they might interact, instead picking at a line of ink under his cuticle that he wants very much to get rid of). By this time they've missed breakfast and are late for their first class of the day—Defence Against the Dark Arts.

"I'm sorry for implying you were stupid," Draco says, out of the blue, as they wander through empty corridors towards Professor Ngige's classroom.

Harry, who feels that Draco rather more than implied his stupidity, accepts the apology nonetheless. Part of becoming less of an arsehole, he figures, is filtering one's thoughts, and Draco's clearly doing better at that these days.

"I'm not sure you've ever said sorry to me before," he muses.

"Don't get used to it."

Harry rolls his eyes, and laughs; "The day I get _used_ to you being polite to me..."

"Yes, yes, I'm a rude and horrible man."

Harry just keeps laughing at him. "What on earth do you _want_ me to say?" he asks.

Draco shrugs. "You could comment on my intense sex appeal."

"Thanks for saying sorry, Draco. That was very sexy of you."

"You're such an arse."

They have to separate once they make it to class.

"Detention mishap," Harry explains as he takes his seat beside Ron.

"I was poisoned and nearly died," Draco elaborates, oozing drama.

"Only of embarrassment." Harry gets a dirty look in return for his wit, here.

"Boys," Ngige looks between them, sternly but curiously. "Please. Class has begun. Take your seats quietly."

"Yes Professor," Draco mumbles.

"Very good. Today we will be focusing on the theory behind shield charms. Some of you may be thinking that shielding magic is elementary, but it is also critical. Your standard _Protego_ is in fact a basis for many more complex enchantments—the one that our Headmistress has placed over this school, for instance..."

*

"You and Mr Malfoy seem to be getting along better." Ngige looks appraisingly at Harry across the little coffee table in his office.

Harry nods. "We're... complicated, still, though."

Ngige chuckles deeply. "Yes, I have formed that impression. Would you like to tell me about what complications remain between you now?"

Harry finds that actually, he kind of _wants_ to talk about what's been going on between him and Draco. He hasn't been able to tell Ron and Hermione, hasn't told Ginny or Luna. Draco himself is the only one who knows they've been fooling around, and he's not the right person to talk to about what Harry may or may not feel about him.

He can't tell Ngige everything—won't tell another person that Draco's gay without his permission, and wouldn't exactly want to share the details of their activities anyway—but Harry thinks maybe he could nut some of this out. His sessions with the Professor are confidential, after all, and he does trust Ngige not to spread things around. He's not the kind of man who goes to the Prophet with his students' private lives.

"I... in some ways I think we're friends, but there's still a lot we haven't talked about," Harry says, and thinks about Teddy.

"Why haven't you?"

"It'd be awkward to bring up. We've sort of made our peace based on not talking about it. We'd only fight again if we did."

"Is that really peace, then?" Ngige asks, in that thoughtful, philosophising voice of his. "Harry, _true_ peace comes from healing the causes of conflict, not simply from neglecting to fight. There is a difference between a war's end and a ceasefire, don't you agree?"

Harry nods, but he already knows he doesn't want to talk to Draco about the things that have always come between them. Things haven't been bad. They've been civil, they've exchanged excellent orgasms. He's not sure it's reasonable to ask for much more than that.

"I could mediate if you wanted to have a joint counselling session," Ngige offers.

It sounds a bit too much like couple's therapy for Harry. It's hard to imagine anyone else actually understanding the dynamic between them enough to stand in the middle and facilitate a confrontation.

"I'll think about it," says Harry, noncommittally enough that Ngige lets out a sigh. "I'll definitely consider talking to him," Harry adds.

*

"Are we friends?" Harry asks Draco. They're undressing in the prefects' bathroom. Draco pauses with one of his socks off.

"What, because we suck each other's dicks? I don't know about you Gryffindors, but in Slytherin we like our friendships to be based on mutual like and trust."

"Oh, yeah, Gryffindor friendships are based entirely on helping each other out," Harry rolls his eyes. "You know, Draco, it's mad but I think I like you alright these days."

"You're right," says Draco. "That is mad."

Harry finds himself quite disappointed. His hands pause on his flies; suddenly he doesn't want to be naked in front of Draco. He feels too exposed already, too cold and uncomfortable.

"Merlin, Harry, don't look so downcast. It could be said that I like you too."

Some of the discomfort fades. He wants to ask Draco how much he likes him, and why, and since when, but all these questions make him feel like a fourth-year with a crush.

And _shit_ , he thinks as he watches the lean muscles in Draco's torso work as he removes his own trousers and pants. Harry's not a fourth-year anymore, but the other thing... the other thing is still possible.

"I think we should talk," he blurts out. "To resolve our differences properly."

Draco, who's bent over the large bath fiddling with the taps, swivels around to stare at Harry.

"You _really_ want to talk about our differences right now?" he asks, very sceptically indeed.

Harry is torn. On the one hand, on display in front of him is Draco's arse, and the musculature of his back. Harry wants to touch all that milky skin, taste it, see what else Draco might let him do to him. But he's not sure whether he'll be able to do it without thinking about who exactly Draco is, now. What he's previously said and might still believe in.

"Yeah," Harry says with a wince. "I really do, sorry."

Draco finishes with the taps. The room is filling with a fresh, citrusy scented steam, and the tub with glimmering bubbles.

"Fine. But if you insist on a heart-to-heart I insist that we at least do it while we bathe."

Beneath the bubbles seems as good a place to hide himself as any, so Harry agrees.

The water is so warm it prickles Harry's skin as he steps down into it. He leans up against the side of the tub near enough to Draco to hear him over the sound of bubbling water, but not close enough to touch.

"The last thing we really fought about," Harry begins, "was Teddy Lupin."

"And my parents," Draco adds.

"Yeah. Do you still think Remus Lupin couldn't be a good father just because he was a werewolf?"

"And do _you_ still think my parents were so heinous I'd have been better off in an orphanage somewhere?"

"No," says Harry. "I don't like your dad at all, but he did at least try to love you. He made sure you grew up feeling like someone worthwhile, even if it was for the wrong reasons sometimes. And your mum's not so bad. It was wrong of them to push you into supporting Voldemort—but Voldemort himself was left to grow up in an orphanage. It's awful feeling like nobody loves or wants you. Any parent who cares is better than that."

"And you, Harry bloody Potter, saviour of the universe, would know what it feels like to be unwanted?" Draco snorts, but he stops and reassesses when he sees Harry's face. "Merlin, _do_ you? And people thinking you're full of shit doesn't count."

"My family," Harry says. "My Aunt and Uncle. They didn't want me."

Draco opens his mouth to ask some other questions about Harry's upbringing, but Harry cuts him off: "We can come back to that. You have to answer my question first, since I've answered yours."

"Fine. I— I do still think Edward would have been better off not being born to a werewolf. I just think it's irresponsible to be having children you know might be afflicted with a condition that attracts society's ire."

Harry bristles. "Isn't it society's fault for looking down on people, rather than the fault of the people who are being discriminated against?"

Draco just shrugs. "Of course it is. But in reality, we make our choices in context. Lupin knew the world disliked werewolves, and he still gave a child his werewolf blood."

"So he should just never have been allowed to have a family, is that it?"

"It would have been the responsible thing to do," Draco nods.

"I really want to punch you right now," says Harry. He itches with the need to change Draco's mind about this, is completely fucking restless with how much he disagrees.

Draco lounges back in the bubbles. "Go ahead then," he says.

Harry lunges for him, body sliding through the water. He draws his arm back, clenches his fist, and—

It occurs to him that punching Draco won't really do what he wants it to do. It won't make Draco think any differently. It'll just be a distraction—and now distraction isn't what Harry wants.

" _Why?_ " he asks instead. "Why the hell can you think it's okay to just rule out people's right to live full lives?"

Draco backs himself up against the opposite side of the bath, sinks low into the water and shuts his eyes. "A few years ago, my mother told me that part of a parent's task is to give their child the easiest life they can," he says. "In her case, that meant advising me on how best to survive in the world. How to be the most liked—or at least the least hated that I could be. Sometimes it isn't just wisdom that a parent can offer, though. My mother was always privately glad, for instance, that my Aunt Bella never mothered any children. They'd have been born with all the makings of an outcast."

"Yeah," Harry shudders at the thought of the Lestranges as parents, "because Bellatrix would have been terrible at raising a kid. Lupin and Tonks were going to be great at it."

Draco shakes his head. "My Aunt would have been an absolutely monstrous parent, yes, but what I meant was that the genes she'd have passed to an heir would have been deeply faulty as well. Between Bella and Rodolphus, any Lestrange offspring would surely have inherited some severe manic or depressive tendencies—perhaps both. Delusions, psychopathy. How can it be fair to _knowingly_ give a child such a difficult life?"

"There are potions and therapies for mental illness," Harry points out.

"None of them are _cures_ ," Draco counters.

"Nobody's perfect. People figure out how to live with their problems so that they can live the other parts of their lives."

"Except when they don't!" Draco's face is growing tight, Harry notices. His voice is rising. "Why do you _think_ nearly all the werewolves in Britain end up like Fenrir fucking Greyback, hmm? Sometimes people _can't_ get past their problems—and then even if they do they're still surrounded by others who never will. Sometimes people _have_ to give up on things they want, just to avoid causing more pain."

Draco can't possibly just be talking about Teddy or the Lestranges anymore, and Harry can't help but wonder—

"What was it that your mum advised you to give up?"

"That's a second question," Draco tilts his chin up. "Tell me about your relatives and I'll tell you about mine."


	10. Mechanics

They hadn't ended up getting each other off in the bathroom last night, but Harry still feels like he's had a very intimate encounter.

Draco had listened to his account of living with the Dursleys, horror plain on his face until he remembered to school it away every few minutes, though the impassive façades never held.

"A lot of the things I said to you as a child..." he'd breathed, "I really wish I hadn't said now. Knowing that."

Harry had given him a reassuring smile. "Knowing the two of us, you'd probably just have used the knowledge to be even nastier back then."

"Yes, probably. You're not helping, you know."

"But your apology's accepted." Harry had never thought it would be easy to let go of the kind of things Malfoy'd once said and done to him, but somehow it was, when Draco was there naked in the bath with Harry, meeting his eyes with real regret.

For his turn, Draco told Harry what it was Narcissa had said he ought to do to make his life easier: _Hide your desire. Marry—marry a woman—have children, and enjoy whatever you can about family life. It will be easier than_ _refusing all that is expected of you._

And Draco had seemed to take it to heart. He was unhappy about it, obviously, but he did plan to marry and do his duty to the Malfoy name. No wonder he hadn't managed to overcome what he'd been taught about werewolves when he hadn't even accepted himself properly yet.

It's nearly breakfast time and Harry's been lying awake most of the night, just thinking about what that must be like for Draco, and wondering why the hell the image of Draco with a pureblood wife on his arm bothers him so much that his stomach clenches, and something almost as cold and slimy as jealousy washes down the back of his neck.

*

_I've done too many difficult things because they were expected of me._

They've been sitting in silence at their desk in detention, and Harry's had plenty of time to try and pull together what he hopes is acceptable phrasing. He's expecting the unhappy look Draco gives him.

"Not all of us were destined since childhood to martyr ourselves the freedom of all of Britain," he mutters.

"They don't have to be heroic things," Harry points out. "I did things some things that didn't feel very heroic, that's for sure."

The spectre of Dumbledore's pleading face as Harry fed him poison has been a haunting one, even if he understands that it happened for a just purpose. And then there was the walk to the Forbidden Forest—difficult at first, but then too easy to be entirely brave. _Quicker and easier than falling asleep_. Sometimes Harry believes that forcing himself to wake up again was his real labour of duty.

"Is this about our conversation the other night?" Draco whispers. "Are you trying to imply that since nothing good has come of me doing unpleasant things for the sake of my family before, I should give up and throw all regard for them to the dogs?"

"Not all regard," Harry frowns. "I just think maybe your mum _believes_ she's sparing you more pain than she's causing you, with her advice. Only she isn't."

"How can you claim to know? Any idea what people would say if I— _revealed myself_ —publicly? _I_ don't have a reputation likely to make them forgiving. And if I simply kept myself quiet and declined to take a wife they'd have things to say about that as well! Oh, look at Draco Malfoy now, not even the daughters of the least reputable families will touch him!"

"People are always talking. Nothing you can do will stop them." Harry scrubs at his forehead, where overgrown hair is tickling its way down into his eyes. "All you can do is what'll make _you_ happy. It's _your_ life."

"Are you really pretending it made you happy to do battle with the Old Snakeface?" Draco scoffs.

"No," Harry assures him. "I'm not. Voldemort made me miserable for the half of my life that I wasn't miserable because of the Dursleys instead. I was even expected to _die_ so that he'd go away. Of course it didn't make me _happy_. That's exactly my point!"

Harry feels the tingle of magic falling over him, and he sees Draco look up in surprise too. Across the room, McGonagall has her wand in hand. She presses a finger to her lips—she's cast a privacy spell on them, then—and nods for them to continue.

"Fucking fine," Draco whips his quill across the page, hurriedly scrawling out the same line Harry wrote there. "It hasn't been my mother's expectations that have hurt me, though."

Harry thinks of Draco lying low at the beginning of the year, trying to go unnoticed, and hopes that's not how he's planning to spend the rest of his life.

Draco seems to calm himself now that it's his turn to choose a statement. He looks at Harry speculatively, and Harry hopes that whatever's coming isn't _too_ intense for half past seven in the morning.

 _I never died facing Voldemort,_ he writes.

"Can't you just ask me what you want to know like a normal person?" Harry sighs.

"Oh? Normal people, are we now?"

"I didn't _stay_ dead, so it doesn't really count," Harry tries, but he sees the moment of confirmation in Draco's eyes anyway.

"You—he—I thought you were just exaggerating, Potter," he says.

Harry shrugs. "The reports of my death were a bit exaggerated, but not completely."

"Mother said you were just faking."

Harry smiles weakly. "I was, by the time she came and checked on me. I'd already gone and come back."

"What was it _like_?" Draco leans closer despite their bubble of privacy. He's fascinated, Harry realises.

"Quicker and easier than falling asleep," Harry says quietly. "That's what Sirius told me on my way there."

Draco's forehead creases. "I'm going to ask you more about how on earth you spoke to my then-already-deceased cousin about the process of dying later, and you're going to answer me—but what I meant was what was it like to be dead? What is there, you know, _after_?"

"It, er, looked like Kings Cross Station, actually," says Harry. "It'll probably look different for you. Might even look different for me next time. I don't really know how it works, or how much of it really existed."

"A point of transit," Draco muses. "I suppose it makes sense. You didn't see what _really_ comes after, then—just stood on the doorstep."

Harry can't help it—he starts to laugh. Laugh, at how instinctive it is for Draco to be blasé about Harry's every experience even when he blatantly finds it amazing to start with. It's also kind of refreshing to tell someone about the time he literally died, and not have them treat him like he might break because of it; even Ron and Hermione still do that, and he hasn't really told anyone else the whole of it.

Harry's suspicion that Draco is actually someone he'd want to spend time with even if they weren't getting each other's dicks wet—someone he might, right now, want to spend time with for purposes other than the exchanging of orgasms—swells in his chest like an inflation of his lungs that he can't exhale again, can't squeeze back down to size.

McGonagall doesn't seem to mind that at the end of detention they've only written down three things they have in common: instead, she gives them each an approving look when they hand the mostly-blank parchment back.

*

There are whisperings in the Great Hall again, as Harry settles in for breakfast between Ron and Ginny.

"The Aurors came for the picture of Elspeth Volke," Hermione explains, leaning over Ron, who's trying to construct some sort of sandwich out of pastries and apple slices.

Harry doesn't know who Elspeth Volke is.

"The Slytherin girl," Hermione says, in a tone where the _obviously_ and the _if you'd just paid attention you'd know this already_ need not be voiced, so heavily implied are they. "Apparently her mother occupies a prominent position on a Ministry fundraising committee and her father's business supplies the DMLE with some important piece of equipment, so they've made enough noise that they've been given warrants to investigate within Hogwarts."

"Why couldn't they before, then?" Harry asks, puzzled.

"Don't even get me started on the Ministry's procedures for investigations within Hogwarts," says Hermione, who seems to have gotten started anyway. "They seem, historically, to have been something along the lines of 'Dumbledore can handle it'. And then when Umbridge took over the latitude of the head of Hogwarts only expanded—"

"Hermione," says Ron. "It's utter bollocks that the procedures are that way. Please have something to eat, though."

Hermione seems to remember the croissant dangling between her thumb and forefinger and begins strategically tearing it to pieces and spreading them with butter and marmalade.

Suddenly there's shouting from the Slytherin table, and all three of them—and mostly everybody else in the hall too—crane their necks in an effort to see what's happening.

Harry, who's never broken the habit of being aware of Draco's whereabouts, makes eye contact with him quickly. The commotion is coming from the other end of the table, though. Draco gives Harry a significant eyebrow raise before returning his attention to the boys who are shouting so hoarsely now that Harry thinks they might be trying to bruise one another with the sound waves.

"Twenty galleons isn't enough to risk getting _arrested by the Aurors_ , Gray!"

"The Aurors wouldn't even fucking _be_ here if you'd done it _properly_. Besides, it wasn't my idea. Wasn't my money—"

"And you expect me to believe you didn't keep a cut, huh—"

"As if that matters. It wasn't supposed to be bloody _Elspeth_. She's twelve years old, for Salazar's sake."

"And _I_ didn't know why it'd be a problem! _All the details are need to know,_ you said. Well I think I needed to know that—"

Abruptly, a thunderclap rattles everything in the Great Hall. McGonagall stands at the head of the staff table, her wand pointed at the ceiling, where clouds roil, lightning crackling between them.

"Mr Gray and Mr Boshoff, to my office now," she orders, and her voice booms almost as loudly as the thunder did.

The two boys settle down, looks of horror dawning as they apparently realise how much they've said.

"Cunning my arse," Ron sniggers. "Slytherins can be dumb as rocks sometimes."

Hermione doesn't try to make her boyfriend play nice this time; defending genuine stupidity is one thing she'll never do.

"I'm going to talk to Draco," Harry informs them, almost before he knows himself that this is what he'll be doing. "See what he knows about those guys."

Hermione nods. "Take notes," she says. "Or tell him to come back to the common room with us so I can hear him tell it as well."

*

"I swear," Draco says, perched on the edge of one of the overstuffed armchairs in the Gryffindor common room, "it's times like these I'm ashamed to be a Slytherin. Sharing a house with such outright stupidity. Gray and Boshoff are worse than Cr- than Goyle used to be."

Harry winces, and he sees Ron doing the same. Hermione just levels Draco with a look that says, _Do tell us more about how you've never been a stupid Slytherin in the slightest._

Draco flaps a hand at her. "Yes, yes, I've done idiotic things. Is that what you want me to say? I like to think that at least my mistakes were slightly less elementary than what we witnessed just now."

"Who cares?" Seamus interjects. "So Malfoy's been an arsehole. Thought we were here to learn something new."

There's a smattering of laughter, and Draco looks put out, but he shuffles back further onto his seat and starts to look a bit more like he's claiming the space—out of spite, if not real comfort. He's the centre of attention—as he'd once always wanted to be.

"So what were, er, Gray and Boshoff talking about before they started yelling? Any idea?" Harry asks.

"I was only able to make out something about robes and hair," Draco answers.

"Robes, hair, Elspeth, some kind of mistaken identity..." Hermione says, light in her eyes. "Do you think it could be—"

She, Ron and Harry exchange looks, all remembering one previous incident which might be summed up using similar words.

"Polyjuice?" Ron offers tentatively. When Hermione nods in firm agreement, he repeats himself, louder, projecting to the students who have gathered. "Someone's made polyjuice."

"Why did I not think of that?" Harry hears Draco scolding himself. He's overcome by the urge to reach out from his spot on the soft rug right next to the fireplace, to lay a hand on Draco's knee or in the crook of his elbow to settle him. To tell him it's alright that he didn't immediately put all the clues together; it's always taken some teamwork.

"So Gray and Boshoff were paid to get someone's hair for the potion," Hermione narrates to the group. "We still don't know who paid them, or who used the potion. We also don't know for _certain_ that the pictures are of polyjuiced imposters—but there seems to be a strong chance of it."

"That's great news!" says a Ravenclaw boy excitedly.

"It's _horrible_ , Max!" Lydia argues. She's sitting near Max, and from Harry's position they seem to be part of the same cluster of friends. "I feel _sick_ knowing it's possible for people to impersonate me for sexual purposes _I don't consent to_. People could do this to anyone, any time, and from now on I'll probably always be wondering whether I'm safe, whether the people around me are safe, or whether someone's stealing our bodies to manipulate however they want. But by all means, be pleased about it. _Great_ news."

Max seems to startle. "Oh— _obviously_ , it's an awful thing to do. Awful that it's possible to do, even if it's quite cle—" he shakes himself again, and his heavy glasses drift to the right side of his slightly crooked nose. "I'm sorry. Lydia—you know how angry I am that this happened to you. What I meant to say was that from a legal standpoint, we'll be really lucky if polyjuice was used."

Lydia appears to accept this explanation. Max, Harry gets the impression, is a bit like Hermione when she forgets that not everyone follows directly on her wavelength, and that not everyone appreciates a clinical touch in personal matters.

"He's right," Hermione speaks up. Her voice is gathering speed and volume, the way it does when she's found an answer and can't impart all the explanation behind it quickly enough. "There are so many gaps in the law in this area that the Aurors would have real trouble pressing charges if the photograph was genuine. The fact that Elspeth is so young would help, but the other targets might well fall through the cracks. But _polyjuice_ is a well-regulated potion because of the obvious implications of impersonating other people."

Ron gives a soft snort. Hermione holds up a hand as if she means to whack him on the shoulder. Obviously she can't, but the indication that she'd like to works about the same. It _is_ funny, Harry will admit, to hear Hermione talking about how very illegal virtually all uses of polyjuice potion are. Harry's always had a gut feeling about it—the recipe wasn't hidden in the Restricted Section for nothing, and they also did literally use it to pull off a bank robbery, which made it pretty obvious. Hermione, though: she'd known the whole time _exactly_ how many laws they were breaking. And she'd done it anyway. She's a bit terrifying like that, and Harry's affection for her is immense.

"Won't the Aurors figure that out too, based on the same information we've got?" says Ginny.

"Probably," Harry agrees. "But they weren't going to tell _us_ about it. Now we know, so we can help."

"Exactly," says Hermione.

Someone—Hazel, Harry recognises her from before—is standing up in the middle of the little Ravenclaw knot where Lydia and Max are both sitting.

"Between us, we've solved this much of the puzzle already," she says proudly, casting her eyes around the common room. "It's only our cooperation that's brought us this far. Draco Malfoy, we value your insight from Slytherin house. Max, you know almost as much as your dad about the law."

"Who's his dad?" Harry whispers to Hermione.

"He's in the Wizengamot," she whispers back, then shushes him.

"Lydia, you've been such a strong leader through all of this," Hazel continues. "And with Hermione Granger's famous intellect on our side, there's hardly a limit to what we can learn."

Harry sees Hermione blush. He sees Ron noticing this too, and looking proud as they huddle close together on a large cushion on the floor.

"We're going to need all the eyes and ears we have at our disposal to find out who might have been involved in planning, funding and carrying out these attacks. We have insight that the Aurors don't. Anything we find out can help their investigation as well as our own, and contribute to seeing the people who did this brought to justice."

Hazel's Ravenclaw friends clap in support, and Hermione joins in. A few of the Gryffindor blokes sitting near Harry let out whoops and cheers. There's an energy in the room that Harry can't imagine just _creating_ out of nothing the way Hazel's managed to. Hermione's better than Harry is, although she does tend to give lectures more than she does motivational speeches.  It's the difference between people who were born to be leaders, and people who were just... Chosen, based on no criteria that actually deemed them capable of things like speechmaking.

The meeting disbands with a distinct sense of purpose.

Draco lingers in his armchair as most of the students from other houses head back out to their own common rooms.

"You okay?" Harry asks, because there's something tense about Draco's face.

"Fine."

"Are you hanging around here for any particular reason?"

"I can go," Draco says, and starts levering himself up.

"No," says Harry quickly. "I didn't mean you had to go. I'd quite like it if you stayed."

Draco looks around the common room as if they're having some kind of top secret discussion and he's worried they'll be overheard.

"I've got some reading I can't put off any longer," Harry offers. "You could read too."

"I don't have my books."

"You can borrow mine. Or Hermione's, maybe, depending on the subjects you need."

Draco looks at him curiously, and Harry plays back his own words in his head, hearing the hopeful note in them and gritting his teeth against the embarrassment that wants to flood him. He has nothing to be embarrassed about, he knows. His body just doesn't act rationally towards Draco anymore. Especially not since Harry became conscious of his... feelings.

"Which volume of the Potions text are you using?" asks Draco.

"First one," Harry replies.

"Good. I'll take the second, then."

Harry picks up the heavy, cloth-bound book and holds it out to Draco, who's climbing out of the chair.

"You don't need to—" Harry starts, but doesn't bother finishing when he notes that Draco seems intent on changing his position. He wants to be closer to the fire, Harry gathers from the way Draco shoos him several inches across the carpet so he can situate himself between Harry and the low-smouldering flames.

They both lie there on their fronts, propped up on elbows buried in the soft red rug, turning pages in silence. Harry's completely distracted at first—distracted by the warmth soaking into him, from the fire but also, he thinks, from Draco's body as it's pressed right up next to him. They're not touching, but they're about as close as they can get without doing so. After a fairly unproductive fifteen minutes, however, Harry realises that Draco's not doing anything he needs to be hyper-conscious of. The words on his page begin to make more sense, holding his attention for more than three seconds at a time. He's still aware that Draco's _there_ , but it's a low thrum, a comfortable assurance of company, presence that doesn't demand anything from him but the upkeep of their quiet stillness.

By the time Draco has to go to his midday class, Harry's finished all of his set reading for Potions for the first time in his life.


	11. Curvature

It's exceedingly odd, being a spectator to the quest for answers, but this is where Harry finds himself as he sits with Luna, Ginny, Pansy, Neville and Draco in the Three Broomsticks. At a table across the room sit a group of younger Slytherins. Harry recognises the bulk of Elspeth Volke's older brother and the ashy blond of Gray's hair among them. They seem for all the world to be chatting amiably. Volke leans into a skinny blonde witch, also from Slytherin, who rub her hand through his spiky hair, laughs sharply at his comments, kisses his cheek and lips periodically. Harry doesn't pay them much mind when he first spots them, though he does wonder at how Volke seems to have forgiven his mate's involvement in the crime against his sister when he initially seemed poised to murder anyone with a part in it.

When Volke's girlfriend goes to buy another round of butterbeers, he leans across the empty seat between himself and Gray and they laugh together at some joke.

Harry's attention is snatched back to his immediate vicinity when Draco lays a hand on his upper thigh under the table, under the guise of leaning across Harry to pinch his serviette.

"Want to go to the loo?" Draco murmurs, and Harry feels his prick twitch, an obvious advocate for this course of action.

Harry's about to announce his intention to take a leak to the table when Volke's table erupts in shrieking laughter. Volke's girlfriend has a cackle so high and shrill it puts Pansy's best effort to shame, and makes Harry think that maybe all the Muggle representations of witches could have been on to something after all.

Gray, now rather red-faced, pushes his chair out with a loud scrape and goes to leave, but is caught by the wrist. Volke stands next to him, holding on, looking down from his significant height, not laughing at all. He says something Harry can't make out over the din. Gray presses his free hand over his mouth, but Volke wrestles for control of that arm too.

Harry glances at Draco, finds him watching as well, face drained of its usual already-limited colour. The look on Gray's face reminds Harry of—

—of Draco after he'd ingested the magical truth-telling ink.

"What the fuck have you put in my drink?" Gray shouts, trying to pull his arms back but failing. Harry's on his feet, but Draco refuses to stand and let him past so he can go over and stop what's happening.

"Gray's spiked his drink with a potion or something!" Harry hisses. "You _know_ what that's like."

"Yes," Draco agrees. "But they've obviously used Veritaserum, which won't _poison_ him."

"It's not about him _dying_. It's about them forcing him to say things."

"Truthful things," Draco points out. "Think for a minute, Harry: what information might Gray have that Volke is interested in, hm? Mightn't it be in our interests to see that that information is uncovered? Besides, Potter, you've snooped around far too much to get all high and mighty about other people's investigation techniques."

"If you _really believed_ that telling me you meant to get Sasha's hair off my robes instead of Ellie's meant I'd just _forgive_ you, then you deserve this!" Volke bellows. "She's hot, but she's a fucking _person_. I like it when she's naked, but only where and when she fucking _wants_ to be!"

A red flash leaps from Volke's girlfriend's wand to Gray's back as punctuation and he lets out a squeal of pain. She must be Sasha, Harry realises, and abruptly knows just how the Veritaserum ended up in Gray's butterbeer.

It's one of those moral dilemmas—the kind Harry thinks he might deal a bit poorly with if he joins the Aurors—having to choose between playing by the rules or getting to the answers that are necessary to put the bad guys away.

"I'm pretty sure he's found out who paid for the hairs to be stolen," Harry tells Draco. "It's just about to be a fistfight."

"So?" Draco raises an eyebrow. "Tell me more about how you don't condone fistfights, Harry. Please. I'll find the irony just _hilarious_."

When the hexes start flying, Draco backs down and lets Harry through. By then, Volke's friends are already restraining him, and the bartender has left the bar to deal with Gray. He seems accustomed to dealing with rowdy patrons.

"I'll find out from Volke who Gray got the money from," says Draco. "I'm sure he'll be willing enough to tell, especially since my best friend was hit too."

*

The way that Draco presses his lips to the tip of Harry's cock makes him miss having someone to properly snog. Kissing always made it feel more personal; like the person he was with was getting off because they really liked him, not just because of what he was physically doing to them.

Harry can't ask Draco to care about him like that; it's not what their whole arrangement is about—but Draco doesn't have to know what snogging means to Harry.

Harry's mind blanks for a few minutes as Draco laves his tongue over Harry's cock, sucks on his balls, moans around them, coaxes Harry to orgasm in his mouth. Afterwards, though, the thought resurfaces.

"Can I kiss you?" he asks. "Like, on your lips."

Draco laughs, wiping off his reddened mouth. "I can think of better ways for you to thank me. I haven't come yet."

Harry nods. He's absolutely keen to reciprocate. It's just—"I mean as well," he tries to explain. "Can I suck you off, but also kiss you?"

"I suppose I shouldn't judge you for your oral fixation given how I benefit from it," Draco shrugs, pushing impatiently at his trousers to free his stiff cock. "Come here then."

Harry approaches Draco slowly, now that he's got permission. Once, he might simply have surged forward and expressed his desire to kiss Draco by _doing it_ —but this way, he can savour it. Can watch Draco's face as he inches closer and leans in, then shut his eyes and feel.

Draco's mouth is soft, but not too gentle. His tongue takes immediate initiative, crossing the threshold of Harry's lips and seeking Harry's own tongue out. Draco's lips are smooth, but dry enough to catch on Harry's chapped ones; the contrast with the slick insides of their mouths is perfect.

Harry lets out a sound that's half-sigh and half-groan, and then Draco's pulling back.

"If you're insistent upon making out like a pair of fourth-years, at least get me off while we do it. It's only fair," Draco says, gesturing towards his groin.

"That sounds very fair," Harry agrees, spitting in his palm and wrapping his hand around Draco's cock.

A minute later it's Harry who pulls back from the kiss, too overwhelmed by the whining sounds issuing from the back of Draco's throat, the feel of his hot breath against Harry's face, the _proximity_ of it all. The _intimacy_. It's always made Harry lose himself, being this close with another person, this connected.

"God, I want to fuck you," he breathes.

And then he hears himself, and Draco hears him, and they both freeze. Draco feels like stone against Harry. His breath is suddenly chokingly humid instead of pleasantly enveloping. They each step back at once.

"What?" Draco asks, although it's clear he's heard Harry. Before Harry can repeat himself, though, he adds: "Why?"

Harry blinks at him. "Because you're bloody hot." He'd thought this was fairly obvious. "You've got the best arse I've ever seen."

"Rubbish, we've both met Viktor Krum so we both know—"

"Not my type," Harry cuts him off. It's only the truth; Harry can identify Viktor as handsome, can _understand_ the allure, but that doesn't mean he feels it keenly himself. Vik's a bit too... rugged, or something like that. His edges are rough where Harry prefers them clean and sharp. "I'd much rather fuck you than him."

"What makes you think I'd _ever_ let you fuck me?" Draco's arms are folded across his chest, and he's shrinking away like Harry's called him ugly rather than attractive.

"I didn't say I did think that," Harry points out. "Just that I'd be happy if you did."

"And what if _I_ wanted to fuck _you_? Does it go both ways, Potter?"

Harry weighs this up. If his experience with Ginny proved anything, it was that he isn't a bottom—not in that sense at least. Gin was so keen to try things, and he wanted to be able to play his part in them, but he never enjoyed it quite enough to allow her to fully enjoy herself doing it.

Maybe Draco won't be as worried about that. Harry _can_ handle the receiving end of sex; he can get off while he bottoms, but it's not the bottoming that does it. If anything, it takes a little extra effort to make it happen while his arse is occupied.

"I'd be willing," Harry decides. "It's not what I prefer, though. I'm fairly attached to topping."

"Of course you are," Draco mutters. Something in the way he says it rubs Harry the wrong way. "And of course you'd assume you could get me to bend over for you. Harry Potter can have anyone, after all."

When Harry notices Draco tucking his cock away and doing up his flies, he knows this isn't a joke, knows something's going wrong.

"Wait," he implores. "Whatever you think I'm asking of you, it's not—"

"What I think you're asking is whether you can stick your big Gryffindor prick up my arse," Draco spits out.

"Er, _technically_ yeah, that's what I'm asking—but it's not because it'd be a bad thing if I wanted it the other way around. Only I've... I've tried it, and it just wasn't for me." 

"You..." Draco's mouth has dropped open just a little way. " _You've_ let some bloke stick his—"

"Not exactly. Guys can, er," _oh, fuck it all,_ Harry thinks, and ploughs right on. "Guys can experiment with anal sex when they're with women, too. It isn't just a gay thing. And it doesn't make you less of a man, or any of that rubbish. It's honestly just another place you can touch to get off."

"I'm going to need a while," Draco says faintly. "To think." And then he's gone, and Harry's left alone hoping he hasn't fucked their whole thing up.

*

Draco's back in the greenhouses, according to Neville. Also according to Neville it's for the best if Harry keeps his distance for awhile, gives Draco some space.

"Whatever it is between you two," Nev says reassuringly, "he'll come around. But it's not by fighting with you even more that he's going to manage it."

This is good advice, of course, but Draco's sudden absence from his daily life leaves Harry feeling unexpectedly bereft. He hadn't thought himself that reliant on Draco's presence—it's snuck up on him, the extent of it.

It's hard watching Draco from the other side of the semi-official meeting in the Gryffindor common room, explaining that he's discovered the unsurprising benefactor—Alberto Donini—as well as a more surprising accomplice.

Marianne is nestled between Hazel and Lydia when Draco's eyes fix on her. She tries to scramble backwards, but there are a full row of Gryffindor boys between her and the common room exit. Nobody can actually touch her, but neither can she touch them. They huddle together, blocking her escape.

"I don't get it," says Lydia. "Annie I don't understand _why—_ "

"I didn't want to," Marianne says, chin tensed and upper lip trembling. "He said it was the only way to show him I was serious."

"So you've been lying to us the whole time, is what you're saying." Hermione's voice is strident and cold. Harry can see the stiffness invade Ron's posture even though he's several metres away. Harry thinks of Marietta Edgecombe, and knows that the others who were part of Dumbledore's Army are likely remembering the same thing. Hermione sounds like she's regretting not keeping a jinxed member list here, and figuring out what the best way to compensate might be.

"Hermione," Hazel's voice is smooth and strong. "None of us saw this coming, but there's nothing we can do now to change it. Marianne—why did you need to prove you were serious about Alberto?"

Harry spots Ron whispering with Hermione, taking her hand and holding it tightly.

"It's the only way I'm likely to marry a pureblood," says Marianne, and Ron's arm strains with the effort of holding Hermione back. "My grandma's gone on and on about it since my mum left us to live with a Muggle. According to her, the only way to keep what's left of the family together is to keep it as magical as possible. Her family was pureblood way back, and she blames intermarriage for all our problems now—first my brother being a Squib, then Mum leaving, taking him with her. Grandma's the only family I've got left, so I have to."

"You can't possibly want to marry that twat!" someone shouts from the back, and Marianne lets out a sob.

"I don't know _what_ I want—so why shouldn't I listen to the ideas of the people who love me?"

"Annie, please," Lydia says, so softly Harry almost can't hear her at all. "You felt pressured into making the wrong choice, but it's not too late to help us. Alberto isn't the way to happiness—believe me, I took a long time to figure it out, and it was still hard. It's still hard, because he makes you think he cares about you."

"He does though. We both have our family issues... he understands. He said if we could end this over the top consent stuff together, we could prove we make a great team."

"We should take her to McGonagall," cries a young Slytherin, "and then she can tell her sob story to the Aurors!"

"Yes," Hermione agrees.

There are many more heads nodding around the room, and Harry's is one.

"We'll take her to McGonagall, and see what she thinks," he says. It's weird, the way most of the chatter cuts out when he speaks. Most of the time he hates it. "We should let her decide how to involve the Aurors."

"Good call, mate," Ron backs him up. When Hazel gives a decisive, approving nod too it seems the matter is settled.

A group of them escort Marianne to the Headmistress' office. Once there Draco, Hazel and Hermione give a collaborative and very strongly-worded explanation of the events, and then McGonagall dismisses them. She keeps the stern look on her face, but the way she looks at Harry seems softer somehow. Like she's pleased with him for actually bringing her a matter to deal with in the way that Hogwarts students are meant to instead of taking it all into his own hands. There's a first time for everything, Harry supposes.

*

After five days of thinking, Draco seems to have come to a decision. Harry suspects this because Draco is leading him insistently towards a deserted classroom 'to talk, privately'. Harry tries not to be too hopeful about his answer, but the worry and anticipation weighing on his chest aren't exactly the feelings of someone who can either take or leave the object of their interest with no harm done.

His mistake must have been kissing Draco. Harry _knows_ that kissing gets him attached, and he should never have let himself do it.

But then, he already wanted Draco's friendship, already enjoyed touching him, already felt a bit lonely when he hadn't seen him in a while. He was definitely already hyperaware of Draco's whereabouts, and what he was doing, and whether he was okay.

It's been a much slower process than a kiss, Harry realises. The process of falling for Draco Malfoy.

"I want to try it. What you said," Draco informs him curtly.

The tension in Harry's chest releases so suddenly he lets out an involuntary gust of laughter.

"You want me to fuck you."

"I want us to fuck," Draco rephrases. "And I'll bottom on one condition."

Harry waits. _If anyone asks we tell them I'm the one who sticks it in you_ , he imagines Draco saying. Harry would be fine with that, except that none of his close friends are likely to buy it.

What Draco actually says is: "I want to be in control. That means you'll let me call the shots. You'll ask before you do _anything at all_. You'll stop when I say stop and not a second later, and you'll give me permission to hex your bollocks off of you if you don't, since I don't think the Headmistress' enchantments can do much about changes of mind mid-act."

"Yeah," Harry says, a shivery feeling starting to run through him, the flow of blood around his body picking up. _Pushy bottom_ , he recalls Gin's prediction. "I want all of that too."


	12. Black Holes

Marianne, as it turns out, does not trust Alberto Donini enough to bet her freedom on him. She's right, given that Donini tries to pin the whole thing on her the moment he's called in for a chat with the Aurors. He also spills the names of the six others who were involved in gathering hairs, illegally importing polyjuice, and using it to take nude pictures in the houses' respective shower rooms.

The one fact that is truly consistent between their stories is that nobody admits to any involvement with the Parkinson photograph. On their way out, the Aurors tell Pansy they're sorry, but unless the pictures were faked by magic or potions, there are no grounds on which they can prosecute.

Later that night, Harry finds Hermione casting copying charms on a furiously articulate letter.

"One for each member of the Wizengamot," she says. "And all the major DMLE staff. Anybody with influence."

"Can I hug you?" Harry asks, suddenly weary—despite the fact that of all his Hogwarts extracurricular activities over the years, this one has asked the least of him and not caused a single visit to the hospital wing. There are different kinds of tiredness, though.

"Yes," Hermione budges over on the lounge to make room for him, holding her arm up so he can tuck himself in under it. "Would you sign some letters with me? I'm sure it'd help a lot."

"Okay," Harry agrees, then wonders aloud: "How do you do this all the time?"

"Do what?"

Harry gestures awkwardly at the pile of letters. "How do you keep fighting these fights—ones you can't just win with a good spell and a disregard for personal safety."

Hermione chuckles in his ear, and Harry leans into her until his face is cushioned by the thick, clean-smelling frizz of her hair.

"Well, it's more exhausting than most people think—"

"I know," says Harry. "I know now."

"—but as long as it's important, there's a reason to push through that tiredness. Every time you have the same frustrating argument is another chance at changing someone's mind. It's difficult when there isn't a dark wizard to eventually show his face and force all the doubters to admit you were right all along. You just have to keep chipping away."

"Have you got another quill?" Harry asks.

Hermione hands him one, and they sign letters together until they fall asleep down in the common room.

*

It's cloudy and rainy, and it's cold up in the Astronomy tower late at night, but it's their favourite spot for this sort of thing. Harry brings blankets, inlaid with strong cushioning and warming charms. He visits the house elves in the kitchens on his way and leaves with a couple of self-heating mugs of hot cocoa.

When he gets to the top of the tower, Draco isn't there yet. Harry puts up charms to shield them from the biting wind and the rain it blows in, then settles himself in the driest, most sheltered corner to wait.

He waits for ten minutes, then twenty. He drinks one of the mugs of cocoa—which are self-refilling, but don't magically empty his bladder for him afterwards. He crosses his legs and passes the time picking at the hole in the side of his left trainer, scratching at the scab on his elbow from some graze he doesn't remember acquiring, looking out at the inhospitable weather and feeling grateful not to be camping in it like he would have been last year.

By the time half an hour has gone by, Harry's giving up. He needs to pee, he's tired, and the soft warmth with which the blankets are imbued doesn't compare with being in his actual bed, in his actual dormitory. The chillier Harry gets, the less he feels like getting it up is going to be a possibility when Draco shows.

If Draco shows.

At one in the morning Harry packs his things up and leaves, feeling like a bit of an idiot.

*

Draco becomes as much of a ghost as he was at the beginning of the year. He avoids Harry very deliberately, always ensuring that he's leaving a room with his nose in the air whenever Harry enters it.

It throws other relationships into awkwardness too; Harry studies in the library with Ginny, Luna and Pansy, and he wants nothing more than to ask Draco's best friend what the hell is going on with him, but the caustic looks she sends his way let him know just how welcome the question will be.

"Luna," he asks, when Ginny and Pansy have gone to track down a book on the sexual practices of Banshees, "has she mentioned what's up with Draco?"

"She has mentioned that he's having a sexuality crisis," Luna muses. "Though I'd have thought that much would be obvious anyway."

"Er," says Harry. "I'm already a bit aware of that."

"Shouldn't you be able to figure out what's up with him, then?"

Harry frowns. People aren't particularly logical creatures, and Draco Malfoy has tended to require a bit of interpretation if one wants to get to what's behind his meanness. It could be anything that's causing his return to non-participation in life these past few days. It could be that, since the mystery of the photographs has been solved, his reasons for being around and getting along with other people have disappeared.

When Harry explains this to Luna her face clouds over with that part-sad, part-pitying, part-knowing expression of hers.

"That _could_ be why," she tilts her head and stares him right in the eyes. He feels pinned like a rabbit in the headlights of a car, though he knows it isn't Luna's intention to make him afraid, just to help him see. "But Harry," she continues, "I don't think you believe it's why. I know you were close. Can you think of what might have changed?"

Harry likes that Luna doesn't require him to tell her his answer, like Hermione would. Luna's just content to be a medium between him and understanding. That, and she seems to know enough without him having to tell her anything.

When Pansy and Ginny return with arms full of books—books that aren't relevant to the Banshee essay, Harry notices—he grits his teeth and pokes the dragon.

"Can you please tell Draco I want to talk to him," he asks Pansy.

She doesn't snap, to his surprise. Instead she _smiles_ , turns to Ginny and holds her hand out flat.

Ginny huffs, looks at Harry like she's _betrayed_ him somehow, and rummages around in her robe pockets until she produces several sickles. She drops the sickles in Pansy's open palm.

"Did you—" Harry stammers as the realisation hits him. "Did you _bet_ on how long it'd take me to ask you about him?"

"Yep," says Gin unrepentantly. "Couldn't have folded a bit earlier, could you?"

"Just accept that you underestimated how intimidating I am, Ginevra," Pansy gloats.

"Nah. I'm just less of a scaredy-cat than Harry."

"How much did you lose? I'll give you fifty times the amount to never bet on me again," Harry offers, knowing before Ginny confirms it that there's not a chance in the world of that happening.

"Anyway," Pansy slips Ginny's money into her pocket and turns back to Harry, face drawn in a more serious expression. "Draco told me that if you asked after him he said it's nothing personal."

Harry had already known that Draco was staying away from him in particular, but somehow it still hurts, having it confirmed.

"Merlin, he's like a kicked puppy. That makes two of you, Potter, in case you thought he was enjoying this."

Harry shouldn't be pleased to hear that Draco's unhappy too, but he is, a bit. He shakes his head at Pansy. "It's always personal with him and me. It always has been."

"No," she answers with force. "A lot of it, sure—but not when he had no choice."

"Not when neither of you had a choice," Luna adds helpfully. "You both had rather a lot of choices made for you, I think."

"I guess."

"Your life so far has literally been dictated by a prophecy," elaborates Pansy.

And they're not wrong, Harry realises. He's already been thinking about how, although it felt like he was making his own decisions at the time, his options were always pretty limited. He chose to die, in the end—but he chose that because it was the only way, and it was the same kind of necessity that made him come back afterwards.

There were difficult choices and impossible ones, though.

"Draco has a choice," Harry says. He hasn't been as confident in anything in a while. "It might be difficult for him to accept his options, but they're there. And I think he knows that. Tell him that, from me."

Pansy mutters something that Harry thinks could be, "As if I haven't already told him enough times myself," but doesn't deny that she'll pass the message along.

If she doesn't, Harry will just have to try and do it himself, provided Draco doesn't decide it's worth incurring McGonagall's anger just to get away from eventually having to talk to him in detention.

*

Harry wakes up hard and aching, pressing himself down into the mattress and wishing he could call back the scene that now slips away from him like sand pouring through a sieve. He sighs into his pillow and focuses on what remaining memory he has of his dream. He was with Draco. He was kissing him. He thinks they'd had sex, too, but that's foggy. It's the insistent press of Draco's lips against his that's sharp enough to lodge itself properly in his mind. So clear and yet so out of reach, feeling its presence there is the worst kind of pleasure-pain. He drags it into focus again and again, like he's scratching a scab, pressing at a fresh bruise.  

It's still early, he discovers when he gets a glance at the window. Too early for the sun, and too early for any of his dorm-mates to be up. He recognises the restlessness twitching in his limbs though, and knows there's no use trying to fall asleep again. He's tired, but tiredness is different from sleepiness. Besides, he tells himself, his sweatiest nightmares tend to happen when he's woken up and drifted back off again. It's for the best that he gets up and shuffles to the shower.

It's for the best that he steps into the hot spray, listening to the way the sound of spattering water reverberates with the acoustics of the empty bathroom. It's the only sound that's audible, even as he rubs his thumb and then the rest of his hand over his cock, pulling on it gently and then more firmly, more desperately. Contrary to popular belief Harry is good at being quiet, unobtrusive. It was the first thing he was ever taught, after all.

Fragments of the dream flicker back into his consciousness as he pushes himself closer and closer to the edge. They mingle with fantasies until he's not sure what he's remembering and what he's making up. (Of course _both_ the dreams and the fantasies are fabrications, but he tries not to concern himself with that until after he's spilled hot, viscous liquid over his own hand and then carefully washed this evidence down the drain.)

Harry's the very first at the breakfast table. The Great Hall feels more than a bit wrong when it's completely empty. He feels in danger of being reminded of the battle that took place there as much as he's reminded it's his home, full of the students and staff and, hell, the ghosts and portraits of whom his extended family consists.

He eats quietly, listening to the clink of his spoon against his bowl as he shovels cereal into his mouth, not really tasting it. After a while a very young, tired-looking Hufflepuff wanders in and takes a seat at the next table. She doesn't acknowledge him, just leaf through a textbook as she chews a bit dejectedly on a piece of toast.

Neville, surprisingly, is the next of the too-early risers. He seems far more chipper than the Hufflepuff, and seems to enjoy his breakfast much more than Harry is doing.

"What's got you up so early, Harry?" he asks, sliding into place next to Harry on the long seat.

"Could ask you the same."

"Lots of repotting to do!" Neville declares. "Some of the plants do better with the whole transplanting thing if they're still asleep, so it's better to do it before sun-up. It's a bit like giving them anaesthetic."

"Oh," says Harry, surprised and inexplicably upset that Neville has a purpose while he's just... drifting around an empty space at an inconvenient time. Just waiting for the day ahead even though he doesn't have any particular reason to look forward to it.

"So, are you going flying or something?"

Harry considers it, but the weather's still shit. While he might brave it for a match, he can't muster the energy to go out in it just for the sake of flying. Just for the sake of being able to say he's doing something, anything.

"Nah. Just couldn't sleep," he admits.

"That's no good," Neville says. Harry loves him very much, in that moment, for his lack of judgement. "I know a lot of us are struggling. I find that gardening helps a lot. Draco says so too, so it's not just because I've always been a bit of a Herbology nerd. You could join if you haven't got other plans before Defence class."

Harry suddenly feels slightly more awake. "Is Draco going to be there this morning?" he asks.

Neville shakes his head. "Can't say for sure, but normally he'd be having breakfast by now if he was planning on it."

Harry's self-aware enough to admit he's disappointed—seeing Draco would have been his major motivation for going. But it _has_ still been a lot nicer talking to Neville than it was sitting alone.

"Never mind him then," he says. "I'll keep you company. Teach me how to move plants without, er, hurting them."

They make their way through the brisk pre-dawn air to the greenhouses. Neville reaches in between his cloak and his jumper and pulls out a key on a string with which he lets them in. Apparently he hadn't been able to nail the very particular locking and unlocking charms Pomona used, and she'd taken pity on him and replaced them with keys and padlocks charmed to be robust and not to open for any of the usual spells a person might use to get through a door.

"Does Draco have one of those?" Harry asks as Neville hangs the key back around his neck.

"No, only me. That's why we've spent so much time together—whenever he wants to do some work and Pomona's busy he needs me to let him in."

"Oh. I thought it was because you were... friends."

Neville halts in front of a collection of pots which are home to a collection of droopy, reedy-looking plants.

"We are," he says. Easily, confidently. "But it started because he needed me to get in here."

Harry gardens with Neville until the sun is up. By then, he's dirty and sweaty and surprised to find that he hasn't thought about much other than not severing any of the plants' roots or shaking them too hard since they began.

"That was really good, Nev," he says, as they scourgify themselves and their equipment. "I can see why you're so into it."

Neville beams at him—one of those open, genuine, _happy_ smiles that make Harry feel warm all over.

*

Detention with Draco is an even more frigid affair than it was the first time around. At least back then, they wanted to fight one another. To engage. At least when Draco was antagonising Harry, he was acknowledging his existence. Draco looks at him now as though he's just another stranger he can't be bothered with—mostly not turning his way at all, but intermittently looking at him so dully Harry feels invisible, or like someone standing in the way of whatever Draco means to see.

"Are you just a coward, then?" Harry needles, when the silent treatment becomes unbearable. He's a little ashamed to say it's not more than ten or fifteen minutes into the hour.

Draco doesn't answer him.

"Too afraid of your own mummy and daddy to contradict them when they tell you who you are? When they're _wrong_? Or are you just scared of the truth about yourself?"

Harry feels mean, feels like he's spitting acid, knows that remorse will come around soon enough but still can't bring himself to stop. All he knows is that Draco looks at him with a whole different kind of intensity—at least when he's not all shut off and glazed over. When he does it _properly_ , Draco looks at him in a way that makes Harry feel more real: like he's something solid, something _witnessed_ , not the tree falling (or the boy falling) in the forest. Not something that's been invented by others, either. In each other's company Harry and Draco are both more than the subjects of insipid sob stories, or the victims of Skeeter columns, or the untouchable hero and the irredeemable villain, both doomed to their roles before the age of twenty. All Harry knows is that he needs this back—and Draco deserves to have it back too.

Draco just sighs and says in much too soft and much too tired a voice: "Merlin, Potter. What do you want me to say? That _yes_ , I am too much of a coward to suggest to my own parents that their plans for my happiness may not be the most effective? That _yes_ , I would rather just give up already than have to stand out any more than I already will for the rest of my life? That I just want to be left alone? Consider all of it said, if it'll shut you up."

It's like punching someone who's completely limp—not fighting back, not even standing their ground. It makes Harry feel like he's ignoring a white flag, a cry of surrender, a plea for mercy. He doesn't know how to get through to Draco when there's no resistance. They've always leant into each other in that way, holding each other up with their mutual pushing. Now Harry is falling right through, and Draco is letting him.

Needless to say they don't get much written down on their parchment. McGonagall gives them one of her most disappointed looks yet.

*

Harry tries to do his reading for Potions. He really does. He sits in the common room with Hermione while she juggles several books, taking notes on all of them simultaneously. He migrates to the floor in front of the fire to see if lying on his front with the book open before him makes a difference. He tries lying on his back and holding the book above his face, but his arms quickly tire of that, and at one point he almost takes a corner of the heavy text to the eye. He reads over the same sentence five times and still doesn't seem to comprehend it.

He switches to Defence, because that's what Hermione's doing. They've been focused on shield magic for a few weeks, which is at least something Harry naturally has a good grasp on, though the category includes a lot more variations than Harry was expecting. There are the subtleties of casting shields to protect from specific things while letting others through—like what Neville has told Harry he casts on some of his plants to filter the type of light they get. There are the arithmantic calculations to determine how much and what kind of magic will be able to penetrate a shield depending on the distance over which it has been stretched. Thankfully they don't have to study the formulas in as much detail for the DADA NEWTS as Hermione, who is quite deeply in love with the whole concept of practical Arithmancy, is presently doing.

"If McGonagall's enchantments are shield magic," Harry muses aloud, "what would it take to penetrate them?"

Hermione doesn't look up from her book, and her eyes don't stop darting from side to side as they race across the pages, but she answers all the same: "Ordinarily it wouldn't be possible to cast specialised shield charms over an area as large as the castle, but I'm fairly certain Hogwarts' intrinsic magic is helping to hold them together, along with a lot of maintenance from McGonagall herself.

"Still, I think I've figured out that very powerful bursts of magic _would_ be able to break through. Otherwise why wouldn't McGonagall have put up shields during the battle? You know how much effort it takes to stop an Unforgivable with a simple, concentrated _Protego_ —so a highly diffuse protective spell wouldn't be able to stand up to magic as strong and dark as that."

Harry flips his book shut and looks up at her. "So you're saying someone could cast the killing curse at someone else inside Hogwarts and it would work?"

Hermione nods, and turns a page. "Yes. Of course, it isn't an easy curse to cast. I doubt many students have the intent, the magical strength and the stupidity required to cast it. I wouldn't worry too much about it, Harry."

Harry tries not to, but he's never been great at not worrying, and he can sense a touch of unease in Hermione's voice too. "It's not just about that curse," he says. "What if someone cast something equally strong, if not as dark?"

Hermione actually lowers her book. "Honestly, I know all of the most capable Arithmancers in the school and I know for a fact that none of them have figured out how much magical force would be required to overcome the enchantments. Even I can only make an educated guess. Most people here have no idea that the shields could be overcome, let alone the power to actually overcome them. Even then, Harry, we've always managed without shields before. It's not the shields themselves we need, it's the reminder they give us of how important it is to ask before making contact with another person's body."


	13. Revelations

Harry keeps waking up early, so he keeps joining Neville in the greenhouse until it becomes less coincidence than pattern. It's something he actually finds himself looking forward to—time with a friend in that secretive part of the morning, where nobody has any expectations of him.

There's one morning where Draco is seated, dark-eyed and weary-looking, at the Slytherin table when Harry arrives. He looks up to see who else has come into the hall, but once he identifies Harry he keeps his eyes trained on anything but him. Neville arrives just as Draco's finishing up his buttered croissant.

"Hey," says Nev, his ordinary speaking voice carrying across the space easily. "Are you coming to do the herbs with us?"

Harry hopes—

Draco gives a faint shake of his head and leaves.

Harry can see that Neville is disappointed too—he's seeing less of Draco while Harry's presence is repelling him.

Harry just lies awake in his bed the following morning. He's only been a guest at the greenhouses, anyway. It's not fair on Neville or Draco that he's taking up their space so regularly.

*

"Mate," says Ron. "Mate, you've got to get some sleep. You've got to eat. I hate to say it but you've even got to study if you're going to pass all your exams. You can't let Malfoy get to you."

Harry rolls over and buries his face in the soft, swollen arm of the settee.

"It's not because of Draco."

"Well then, what other thing is it that started to make you happier around the same time you started hanging out with the git, and ended at the same time he went back to ignoring you?"

"He didn't _go back_ to ignoring me," Harry grumbles. "He never ignored me before. He's ignoring me for the first time."

"Convincing denial," Ron observes. "Want to try it again?"

"Not especially?"

"Fine then. But if you keep going like this we're going to have to talk about it. I've been informed of as much by Hermione. Don't fight me or you'll have her coming after you next, and you know I'm being bloody heroic sacrificing my own sanity to talk to you about this just to spare you her psychoanalysis."

"You're a good guy, Ron."

Ron sighs. "I know. It's a curse, sometimes. Times like right now. Times like when I have to ask you... Harry, have you got a crush on him?"

All of a sudden Harry feels like he's moving too fast for his own body. His heart pounds anxiously but as he raises himself to a sitting position every movement feels forced and clumsy.

"Er," he says weakly. "Who?"

"I said don't fight me," Ron reminds him sternly, and Harry gives up.

"Fine. I... yeah. Reckon so. Not that it matters anymore."

"Blimey," says Ron. "I mean, I knew it, but it's different hearing you admit it."

"Can you not make this weird, please?"

Ron huffs out a shaky laugh. "This is weird to the _core_. I mean, it's you and _Malfoy_. But sure, I'll try not to make it any worse. Because I'm a world class friend. Who deserves lots of nice things. Being showered with gifts, for instance—expensive ones like that new Nimbus model..."

"I'll buy you a whole fleet of Nimbuses if you leave me alone right now," Harry offers.

"A fleet of Nimbuses won't do me much good if Hermione kills me for dodging this talk, though," Ron laments.

Harry imagines what Ron's face would look like if he explained to him exactly what he and Draco had been doing together. The image provides some comfort in the circumstances.

"What's your problem then, eh?" Ron leans into the settee beside Harry, watching him closely as if he's some sort of Mind Healer and Harry is his patient. "Why's he ignoring you? What changed?"

Harry doesn't exactly want to tell Ron that he and Draco were going to fuck but Draco chickened out. It's more detail than Ron would want, anyway.

"His parents don't want him to be gay," Harry says instead, and as he does so thinks that maybe he's come closer to the root cause than just saying that Draco didn't want to bottom after all would have done.

Ron's eyes widen. "His parents _know_?" he asks. "Merlin... that's not the sort of thing good pureblood sons and daughters just _admit_ to their families. He's their only child, heir to the whole bloody fortune—which is probably the only reason they haven't disowned him. He's supposed to have a nice pureblood heir of his own, in wedlock with a nice pureblood girl. Of course the Malfoys don't _want_ him to be gay."

Harry thinks that perhaps he has underestimated the courage required to openly defy parents like Malfoy's. Harry could essentially spit in the faces of the Dursleys, given that they weren't his parents and they'd never given him any reason to like them. But what if it was Molly and Arthur Weasley who were urging him to keep to himself? What if it was Sirius, or Hagrid telling him they wouldn't associate with him anymore if he outed himself?

Harry would still do it, he likes to think—it's his turn to choose who he's going to be and what his life is going to be for—but it would be harder. And he'd be as angry as Draco with anyone who tried to force his hand.

"He said his mum just wanted his life to be easy," Harry explains. "Which I suspect now may have been an understatement?"

"I'll say," Ron confirms. "I mean, wizards in general aren't too keen on people being open about the whole queer thing. It genuinely _isn't_ easy to be public about it, especially when the public already hates your guts."

"Why haven't I heard of this more, then? I haven't read anything about gay witches or wizards in the _Prophet_. Surely Rita Skeeter would be over it if it really was a scandal."

"Harry. I've watched you incinerate countless issues of the _Prophet_ before so much as opening them. You're always grumbling about how they apparently won't allow you to unsubscribe from the daily deliveries."

Harry will admit that he's not really an expert on what the paper does or doesn't report on.

"I'd still have heard _something_ about it though, wouldn't I? I mean—what about Seamus and Dean and Gin? I haven't heard people giving them shit about their whole arrangement!"

"Before McGonagall did her whole consent magic thing Ginny gave at least three people black eyes and called into serious question a few boys' future ability to reproduce," says Ron. "And the three of them are all pretty famous after the war, too. They've got a bit of social capital to spend."

"What's your mum think about it?" Harry asks, suddenly aware that he has no idea.

"Mum thinks it doubles her chances for grandchildren, or something," Ron laughs.

Harry smirks. "But not when Gin's the one—"

"Stop!" Ron cries, throwing his hands up as if they'll stop the sound of Harry's voice getting to his ears. "Do _not_ remind me! It's not really the point, anyway. Mum and Dad are more accepting than the wizarding world in general is. Dad's always done what makes him happy even though it's meant telling wankers like Lucius Malfoy to fuck off at every turn—but not everyone's so willing to roll their eyes at other people's opinions of them."

Harry thinks it's well worth living like Arthur Weasley in that respect, but it's not just about him. People shouldn't have to make peace with being scorned just to be true to themselves. A plan starts ticking over in Harry's brain.

"What are you dreaming up?" Ron asks, looking slightly worried.

"I'm going to come out," he answers. "Loudly. Everyone's always going on about how I'm the fucking saviour of the world—why not use that? Why not make _them_ uncomfortable having to choose whether to praise or condemn me?"

Ron just nods. "Figured you'd want to do that sooner or later. But how? Open letter to the _Prophet_? Hermione's probably already drafted several possible ones if I'm honest."

Harry shakes his head. Words aren't really how he shows people what he values. His words always seem to have less force than his actions. They always feel less like they really get his point across. What he needs is someone to help him illustrate his point with action.

"Ron," he asks, because he has a feeling that even though Ron will say no, he'll be offended if Harry doesn't ask him. "Ron, would you be willing to kiss me in public?"

*

Ron is not willing to kiss Harry in public. He also expressly forbids Harry from using any of his brothers for 'his gay little stunt'—including Charlie, who it turns out is actually, if rather quietly, gay himself.

Dean and Seamus both decline, citing a lack of desire for attention and a reluctance to look like they're cheating on their significant others. Harry's a bit relieved, because he doesn't think he'd enjoy kissing either Dean or Seamus much at all, but he's fast running out of options.

He asks Neville, who tells Harry with aching sincerity that he's proud of him for coming out, and drawing attention to the ignorance that still exists towards queer witches and wizards. Neville says no too, though.

"I don't fancy anyone in that way, man or woman or otherwise," he says, as he tenderly separates a bunch of fuzzy, bluish carrot-looking vegetables which are clinging to each other in a tight spiral.

"Er, what way?" Harry asks.

"Romantic. Sexual. It all just seems a bit weird to me, that people want to be like that with each other."

He supposes he's never seen Neville with a girlfriend or a boyfriend before, but that wasn't reason enough to assume... Harry feels like a giant prick, now, for assuming Neville wanted but simply hadn't managed to get a partner.

"Is that why you spend a lot of time with plants?" Harry asks. "Because they don't have expectations like that?"

Neville chuckles. "It's true that the plants don't expect a lot of the things that people do from me, but it's not that I don't like people at all. There are plenty of ways to love people without wanting to kiss them."

"So it'd be gross for you to kiss me," Harry surmises. "More gross than it would otherwise be, given that we're kind of like brothers."

"Not that it wouldn't be gross," Neville grins, "because it would. But I'm trying to define myself, you know? I want people to believe that I really _don't_ need someone to kiss in order to be fully happy. Showing up snogging you on the front page of every newspaper would probably set me back about a decade."

When Harry's out of ideas, he flops down next to Luna in the grass, close enough that he's enveloped by the sphere of warming charms she's cast to facilitate her gazing at the moon's pale afternoon presence.

"I'm sure there are lots of boys out there who'd like to kiss you, Harry," she comforts him.

"Out where?" Harry sighs. "Because wherever they are, it doesn't seem to be Hogwarts."

"How many people have you asked, exactly?"

Harry's asked five.

"I don't think four people saying no means that all of Hogwarts has rejected you," Luna smiles. "Have you even asked anyone outside the Gryffindor eighth years? I've heard that Zacharias Smith is quite bisexual. And he loves the limelight."

Harry cringes. "I'm ready for everyone to know that I'm attracted to men," he says, "but I'm not ready for them to think I'm attracted to _Smith_."

Luna rolls her eyes good-naturedly. "It was only one suggestion. To show you that you've hardly exhausted all your options. I have a suspicion about Terry Boot, for instance. And a couple of Ravenclaws from my year. And Draco's friend Blaise Zabini's made it clear he doesn't much care who he snogs as long as they're well-connected enough to be worth his time. His mother is famous for having a similar set of priorities when it comes to relationships."

Terry Boot's always seemed kind of shy, and if all he has to go on is a suspicion of Luna's then Harry thinks it's very unlikely the two of them will be making a big queer statement anytime soon.

Harry knows Zabini—tall, dark, handsome bloke who talks like he's drizzling you in honey—but he hasn't engaged with him much at all. The Slytherin's preoccupation with status is, though not unexpected, a bit of a turn-off. It's nothing like as bad as the idea of having Smith lay one on him, though. Zabini is... well. Harry can admit that Zabini is bloody attractive, and he wouldn't mind a kiss even if he's never going to fall in love with him.

"Pansy's friends with Blaise, right?" Harry asks.

"Yes, she is. I could ask her to put in a good word for you, if you'd like?"

It's easier than waltzing up to the Slytherin table and asking Blaise point blank whether he'll make out with Harry for the publicity, so Harry tells her _yes please_.

He regrets this a bit when Blaise sidles up to him in DADA with a knowing, shit-eating sort of look.

"So, Potter," he say, in a drawling tone of voice that _almost_ sounds like Draco but is just ever so slightly wrong. "I've heard some interesting rumours about you."

"From Pansy, I expect," says Harry. "They're not rumours."

"Oh?" Blaise feigns surprise. "So you really _do_ want to snog me, then? I suppose I can't blame you, but it's a bit of a surprise given your usual attitude towards us Slytherins."

They're standing in line, waiting to demonstrate an adapted shield charm they've been assigned—one that's supposed to block fire but let water through. As they wait, Neville casts his charm and then stands immediately behind it. He stands there, dripping, until Professor Ngige casts a drying charm over him. There are a few chuckles around the room, but people don't laugh at Neville the way they used to. It might just be the only good thing to come of the war, Harry thinks.

"It's not personal, Zabini. I've got a plan I need your help with, if you're willing to offer it."

"If by my _help_ you mean my _mouth_ , then I could be convinced."

Part of Harry wants to punch Zabini in his bloody _mouth_ , but the rest... underneath his higher cause there is a definite consciousness that Zabini's mouth is kissable. His lips are wide and pillowy, a slightly more muted shade of umber brown than the rest of him. The bottom lip turns dusty pink just as it curls into his mouth, and Harry wants to follow the trail it seems to lay for him.

And...

 _And_ he can see the way Draco is glaring at him and Blaise from further up the queue. It wouldn't be fair _ordinarily_ , Harry thinks, to use someone just to see Draco jealous—but with this man in particular it's an exchange. Harry's not going to break Blaise's heart, or anything; he'll never get close enough to it, whatever it looks like and however it functions.

"I can certainly help you with _that,_ " Blaise says, leaning closer so he can murmur the words right into Harry's ear. Harry keeps watching Draco, sees him sneaking glances and scowling at how close his fellow Slytherin is to his... whatever the hell Harry is to him.

"With what?" Harry barely remembers to ask.

"With a certain blond snake you're rather obsessed with." Harry can't see Blaise's face—it's still up against his ear, blowing hot breath over his right cheek and down his neck—but he can hear the knowing smirk in his voice. Wanker.

"I've never seen a pair of idiots quite like the two of you," Blaise continues.

"If he doesn't want to talk to me anymore then that's his problem," Harry says, suddenly not wanting to talk about this. Not with his current conversational partner, at the very least. He wishes the queue would move faster.

"Mm," says Blaise agreeably, the way one might placate a child proudly exhibiting an artwork one finds hideous.

"You know what, Zabini," Harry finds himself saying, "we can snog a bit somewhere public—like Hogsmeade, next weekend. But only if you'll stop talking to me about this right now."

Blaise leans back away from Harry, nods at him, looking pleased, and Harry starts to wonder whether this is a trap he's just fallen into—agree with whatever Blaise wants just to shut him up.

"Hogsmeade," Blaise repeats, definitively. "Madam Puddifoot's?"

"Absolutely not."

"You're right, Potter, you're right. The good Madam is far too aggressive about paparazzi in the shop, and there aren't enough windows near the tables."

*

Blaise keeps hanging around Harry in the days that follow. He even wedges Ron out to seat himself next to Harry at dinner one evening. He seems to thrive on Harry's irritation, and the fact that Harry can't tell him to fuck off entirely since he needs him.

When Draco storms up to Harry as they're leaving the hall, enduring Blaise feels suddenly, indisputably worth his while.

"We need to talk," Draco says, then glares at Blaise until he lifts his hands in surrender and walks away, smug smirk still stuck to his mouth.  

"Alright," Harry agrees. "Where?"

"Just follow me."

Harry does.

Draco leads him into a quiet classroom. It isn't empty—there are a pair of younger boys studying in the back, attempting to transfigure rocks into something. Harry isn't sure what, since they aren't succeeding.

"You," Draco points in their direction and barks, "out."

One of the boys moves to stand in front of the other. Harry notes his yellow tie, haphazardly knotted around his neck.

"We're allowed to be here. Professor McGonagall said we could come in and practice if we wanted," he says, in an admirable display of defiance.

"I don't care," Draco says. "I need the room."

"Well, we were here first."

Harry fights the urge to agree with the kid.

"If you let us borrow the room for a while," Harry suggests, "Draco here will help you practice. He's really good at Transfiguration."

"Draco... Malfoy?" the boy standing behind his Hufflepuff friend asks.

"Yes, what of it?"

"My dad said you're really smart," the boy says. He steps up to stand next to the little Hufflepuff and Harry sees his the Ravenclaw badge stitched onto the breast of his school robe.

Draco's quiet for a long moment. When Harry looks at him, there's a vaguely thunderstruck expression on his face.

"Who is your father?" Draco asks, and Harry just _knows_ that he's internally begging any and all gods that this child is not being raised by a Voldemort sympathiser the way he was, taking his old man's word as gospel.  

"He works at the Department of My—"

"Quentin!" the other boy shouts.

"...I can't tell you about him," Quentin finishes awkwardly. "But he said you fixed a broken Vanishing Cabinet in your sixth year. That's really smart stuff."

"Oh," says Draco.

"It's true, right?" Quentin adds, a bit eagerly. "It was in your Wizengamot case."

"Yes, it's true," Draco nods. "I can't say I'm proud of it given what the Cabinet was used for, but it was very difficult. Vanishing Cabinets are delicate, and the one I fixed was very broken when I found it."

Quentin's friend is looking speculatively at Draco.

"Alright," he says. "We'll get out of this room for a bit, and he'll help us."

After the two of them scram, Draco looks at him. His anger's been mostly replaced by a sort of bewilderment.

"Fancy that," he says. "I'm clever Draco Malfoy. And they didn't even seem to care about you!"

"So?" Harry asks, miffed that Draco is so bloody pleased that other people share his position of not caring about Harry.

"So- you're Harry fucking Potter! Most famous wizard in Britain? Saviour of the world? Is that ringing any bells? I always knew you were lying when you said you hated the fame."

" _Oh_ ," Harry says as he realises. "Oh. No, really am glad you took the brunt of their, er, hero worship."

"Hah. Then why do you look like someone pissed in your pumpkin juice?"

"Doesn't matter. What did you rob those kids of this room for us to talk about?"

Draco seems to remember himself, and his scowl falls back into place. He sits on top of the teacher's desk in the front corner and beckons for Harry to join him. The desk he's assigned to Harry is significantly shorter and rather rickety.

"Ah, yes. What I wanted to know is _what in Salazar's name_ you think you're doing with Blaise Zabini."

Harry scratches the back of his neck and looks at the floor. "He's, er, helping me with a project."

"I'm sure. Is this project much like the one you and I have been helping each other with?"

"Not exactly," Harry protests, unsure of how exactly to characterise his project with Blaise. It's not _entirely_ unlike what he and Draco were doing... it's just differently motivated. Infinitely more superficial.

" _Not exactly_ ," Draco parrots, a nasty sneer forming on his lips. And Merlin, Harry misses kissing those lips even when they're curled nastily at him. But Draco's made it clear he doesn't want Harry to do that anymore.

"Why would you care if it was?" Harry bites back. "You've made it obvious that you want nothing to do with me, but you don't get to stop me being friends with your friends if I want to."

"He's _using_ you. You're just a shag to him. Everybody is. Zabinis are constitutionally incapable of caring about anybody they're shagging, just so you know. All he wants is to make famous Harry Potter a notch on his bedpost."

There are many things Harry wants to ask in response to this. Things like _What were you doing with me, then?_ and _Why should you care?_

What he says is: "Maybe Blaise was right, and you really are jealous."

"I see," Draco says slowly. "So your project is to use each other. Nice, Potter. I suppose I gave you good practice at it."

" _You_ were the one who didn't want anything more than sex!" Harry exclaims, and belatedly realises that for all they're alone in the room, Quentin and the little Hufflepuff are probably waiting right outside. Possibly with their ears pressed against the door.

"It was about what I could have! Not what I wanted!" Draco counters just as loudly.

Harry scrubs a hand through his hair. "Damn it," he sighs. "This is something you only need two people's permission for: the person you want to be with, and yourself. What everyone else thinks affects your decision, but only if you let it."

"And I do let it!"

Draco's face is going a bit pink. It makes Harry want to touch him, to smooth his hands over his flushed cheeks and kiss him, to press against him until some of that blood rushes elsewhere. It's hardly the moment for that, though. Harry's a little ashamed of how much he wants to do it anyway.

"I can't help it," Draco goes on. "And I bet you think it makes me cowardly or vain or- or whatever! But I need my parents' approval, alright? I need their approval or I'll have nobody's."

"That's not true," Harry tells him, gently. Draco just sits on the desk and hauls in laboured breaths for a few beats. Harry waits.

"Well, I clearly don't have _yours_. I am, after all, Draco Malfoy—who'll only fight for what affects himself and his own. Draco Malfoy who can't even bring himself to be properly fucking gay without his daddy's permission, which he'll never get. Draco Malfoy, who's too scared to try taking it up the arse even when he's thought of just about nothing else for _weeks_ —"

The moment the last words leave Draco's lips, Harry's brain disregards everything else. "You have?" he blinks at Draco.

"Yes. Laugh it up," Draco grumbles, deflating. He looks like he's given up, and Harry hates it.

"Why would I laugh?" Harry asks. "I've been thinking about it too. Almost as much as I've been thinking about how I want to kiss you. Just _all the time_. I think about kissing you while we fuck, or kissing you while we study, or flying next to you and leaning over to—"

"Terrible idea," Draco interrupts. "That particular pursuit has a body count attached to it."

Harry rolls his eyes, but there's a little hint of a smile forming at the corner of Draco's mouth, and it buoys him. "I said I _thought_ about it, not that we had to try."

"Who can tell the difference with you Gryffindors. You only thinking about kissing me as a dumb, hypothetical idea too, then?"

"I've started to think it might just be something to daydream about, given that you clearly aren't keen for it to happen anymore."

Draco's legs swing off the edge of the desk, heels tapping out a quick rhythm against the legs. His hands, too, move restlessly.

"It wasn't that that stopped me coming to the Tower, you know," he says, so quiet after his earlier shouting. "It was- I'd started to think- if I came to you, and we did that, then there'd be no going back. I'd want it too much more than anything else that was available to me. And I'd have to put an end to it one day, or more likely you'd get sick of me and chuck me for someone _nice_. So I decided it'd be easier if I never knew what I was missing in the first place."

"I think," says Harry, swallowing heavily. "I think it's a bit late for that."


	14. Eclipse

Harry kisses Blaise Zabini in Hogsmeade, on the bustling street outside Madam Puddifoot's. Blaise's lips are exactly as soft and smooth as Harry imagined they'd be, and Blaise's arms wrap around Harry to pull their bodies flush. Blaise carries some of Harry's weight as he leans backwards and upwards to reach the taller man's mouth. The whispers of those around them are as loud in Harry's ears as the sound of his pulse, which thuds anxiously.

There are camera clicks, and Harry lets Blaise tip him backwards a little more—not quite enough to be the damsel in some sort of old-movie kiss, but enough that he feels pleasantly relieved of his own weight for a few seconds. It's not a bad kiss, that's for sure. It's just... Harry can't fight the feeling that this isn't who he should be kissing.

When Harry's out of breath, he pushes himself upright again and pushes politely on Blaise's chest with one hand.

"I think we gave them enough of a show," he says. "Don't you?"

"Mmm," Blaise agrees. He loops his arm around Harry's and tugs him in the direction of Honeyduke's. As they walk, he leans closer into Harry, under the guise of couple-like behaviour. He speaks into Harry's ear: "I wondered, you know, whether you'd fall for any handsome chap who annoyed you enough. But clearly it's more than that."

"Er, what?" Harry asks, struck by the sudden earnestness of Blaise's comment.

"Draco. It's always been complicated between the two of you. More than just pissing each other off," Blaise goes on. "Because I've been pissing you right off all week and you still kissed me like you wanted it to be over."

Harry feels himself flushing. "Er, sorry," he stammers. "It's not that I— you're very—"

"I'm a stunningly attractive wizard," Blaise finishes for him. "And a stellar snogging partner for willing individuals. You needn't tell me about how it's not me, it's you. I've just been _telling_ you about how it's you. You and Draco, specifically."

Blaise's return to cockiness is actually a relief, and Harry grins involuntarily.

"Glad I haven't bruised your ego at all," he says.

"You can't bruise diamonds, Potter," answers Blaise. The words, whatever they mean, are accompanied by a playful wink. "Now let's go and adorably feed each other Every Flavour Beans."

Harry thinks that sounds like an alright idea.

*

The headline reads _POTTER GAY_ , and Harry sends the letter he's already penned to the _Prophet_ informing them that he is in fact bisexual, and asking that they please correct themselves. The rest of the article is irritating, though not outright inflammatory. Harry's relieved to see that Skeeter seems more preoccupied with whether Harry and Blaise are secretly engaged than she does with suggesting he must really have lost his mind now if he's out in public kissing blokes. There's a paragraph which suggests that perhaps he's following in the footsteps of his late mentor, Albus Dumbledore—as if he could somehow have _learned_ his sexuality from anyone, and as if it wasn't through Hermione and her knowledge of various biographical texts rather than Dumbledore himself that Harry learned the former Headmaster was gay in the first place—but even here the tone is more interested than derisive. Like Harry might be starting a new trend and the journalists of the _Prophet_ are thinking of getting on the bandwagon.

Sexuality _isn't_ a trend, Harry knows—people can't change themselves like that just because it's convenient—but he thinks it'll be alright if it's suddenly fashionable to be queer. Maybe even the Malfoys would be able to get on board, if there was social capital attached to Draco coming out.

Blaise grins and winks at him across the table at breakfast, while everyone else is reading or discussing the news. Then he casts a look across at the Hufflepuff table, where there's a seventh year boy looking back at him, a warm smile dimpling his rounded cheeks. Maybe it wasn't just the headlines that Blaise was after, after all. Maybe he wanted the same legitimacy that Harry wants for every queer wizard, especially the purebloods whose families are unlikely to approve. One pureblood in particular, he'll admit.

Draco's late for breakfast, and when he shows up his hair's mussed and his robes aren't sitting quite right. He marches right over to where Harry is sitting, glares and grumbles at Seamus until he scoots to the side, and then squashes himself into place beside Harry.

"What the fuck, Potter," he snaps, though in a lowered voice. "I thought after our talk the other day you wouldn't be snogging Blaise for all the media to see, but obviously you can't help yourself."

Harry frowns. "Our talk established that I like you. Not that I was calling off my plan with Blaise."

"And this was your plan? To make the front page and have the whole of Britain talking about what a pillow biter their Saviour is?"

"Essentially, yes."

" _Why?_ " Draco says, voice rising even above the breakfast-time din. He casts a hurried privacy charm around them, and Harry can't decide whether he should dread what's to follow or welcome it. "Have you just had so much bloody dignity heaped upon you that you felt like throwing some of it to the wind? I know _Blaise_ is that kind of arsehole, but I didn't honestly think you were."

"If you think I lost any of my dignity by coming out," Harry says, punctuating the statement with a hand slapped down on the table in front of him, rattling the cutlery, "then you're more of an arsehole than I thought, too."

"That's not—" Draco tries to say, but doesn't seem to believe himself. Harry takes a deep, steadying breath.

"I can be patient," he says. "But I'm not waiting for someone who'll never come around."

Draco's eyes flash, like the stone grey has gone molten. "You're not waiting at all! That's what I'm saying! That's what the front page of the sodding _Prophet_ is telling me quite clearly."

"One kiss isn't the same as..."

"As what, Potter?"

Harry sighs. "As what we had," he says, and it's one of the braver things he's done lately. "There was something there. At least for me there was—but I think you felt it too."

Draco rolls his eyes, but his mouth is pinched, chin wobbling slightly. "How many times do I need to tell you that I _did_ ," he says bitterly. "That it doesn't make any difference when I _can't_."

"Did you actually read the article?" Harry asks, gently, because he's watching Draco cracking apart right before his eyes and while he can't stop the process he wants desperately to cushion the fall of each piece of him. "It wasn't so bad. For a Skeeter story it was actually a bit miraculous. Maybe your parents would be more open to it if it's something everyone else thinks is fine. I know they've been donating to all sorts of progressive-sounding causes in their campaign to get back in with the influential people."

"That's actually absurd," Draco laughs, a wet little noise in the back of his throat. "Was that really your plan—to out yourself to the world in the hope queerness caught on as some kind of progressive fad and my parents were forced to pretend they were alright with it? ...Merlin's arse, that really _was_ your plan."

"I've had crazier plans and they've worked," Harry says, crossing his arms in defiance. "Why shouldn't this?"

Draco laughs again—but this time it doesn't crackle out of him. It flows up freely and chimes like cathedral bells. Draco laughs at Harry until he's pink in the face and has the hiccups.

"You really thought the _infinitesimally tiny_ chance of that plan working was worth risking the disdain that coming out was nearly certain to attract?

"I had to try," Harry shrugs. "It would have come out eventually anyway—I wasn't going to live in secrecy forever—but I figured: why not now, if there's the slimmest chance of it making us possible?"

" _Us_ ," Draco says thoughtfully, the _s_ drawn out into a soft hiss. "Is this what relationships with Gryffindors are always like?"

"Boldly romantic?" Harry suggests. "Not always. If your Gryffindor thinks you're worth it, though..."

"I was going to say _completely idiotic_ ," Draco smirks. "But I'm pleased to hear my arse is worth even the stupidest of grand gestures."

"Not your arse," Harry shakes his head. When Draco looks mildly offended, he adds, "Although I'm sure that would be worth it too."

"Perhaps I'll let you find out after all," Draco whispers, and then he's heaping bacon onto his plate like he's not just propositioned Harry and blown his mind. "Much to my dismay, I believe your cock might make all the trouble of it worthwhile for me. Perhaps the rest of you too."

*

Harry wants the elation that follows his conversation with Draco to be the only thing he has to feel for a while, but it isn't to be.

Not everyone is as keen as the _Prophet_. There are a minority who, like the objectors McGonagall's enchantments brought out of the woodwork, become suddenly more vocal about their opposition to the idea of gay wizards. For some of them, there is overlap; Harry hears from Hermione that Jasper Donini's close friends have been loitering around the doors to their common rooms and indulging in the recreational verbal abuse of anyone they suspect of being gay, or deem sufficiently effeminate.

Others are more of a surprise. Harry notices the way a few of the boys skirt around Blaise when they're moving into seats at the beginning of class, or when they're taking places at their table in the Great Hall. Harry walks past a hallway conversation in which someone suggests that having queer witches and wizards in the communal bathrooms was only going to lead to the circulation of more nude pictures. Harry's in a hurry, but he still turns around, ready to confront the speaker, only to find himself face to face with little Elspeth Volke's imposing older brother. Harry's not scared to argue with the boy—but he's disappointed by the discovery that he might need to.

Luckily or unluckily, nobody seems to want to direct their complaints towards Harry. He's been the target of enough jeers and scathing murmurings before that it's nice not to be, for once—but it isn't fair that he can get a free pass from certain people because he defeated Voldemort when that has nothing to do with the fact he's just like the others those same people are happy to frown upon.

"See?" Draco tilts his head towards Blaise, who's telling a pair of fourth years to fuck off. He doesn't look affected by it, but Harry's sure even Blaise Zabini's hide isn't oily enough for the homophobia to slide right off.

"It's not fair," he replies, because it isn't. "If they want to disapprove, they don't get to pick and choose which queer people they disapprove of. I'm just as queer as Blaise is."

"Not what I meant," says Draco. "Though your martyr instincts are as tedious as ever. What I meant was that there will be those who disagree, no matter what famous Harry Potter says about something."

"There are a few. But there are a lot more who are supportive," says Harry. "The people on the right side of history."

He watches Draco reach for his forearm, the one bearing the Mark. He disguises the motion as an itch, but Harry knows better—knows that he's struck a nerve.

*

Their next clandestine meeting is an awkward affair, to start with. Though they've previously set some strong precedents when it comes to handjobs, blowjobs, and snogging, suddenly the act of reaching out to bridge the distance between them is difficult.

"Can I—" Harry starts, at the same time as Draco says, "Why don't you—"

Harry breaks off with a thready laugh.

"How about I go down on you," he says.

"That sounds agreeable," Draco assents, and Harry gets to his knees.

Draco is so stiff, though—so stiff in all the places Harry doesn't want him to be, and not stiff enough in the one where he wouldn't mind it.

"Use your hand a bit," Draco instructs. "I'm- I'm just cold."

He's shaking lightly, Harry notices as he smooths his hands over Draco's upper thighs, around to the meaty bits of his arse, and then back around to skirt his groin teasingly. It's not from cold, though. Harry knows what cold feels like, what it looks like—and he knows what fear looks like just as well.

He leans in and presses a neat little kiss to Draco's hip, then moves his mouth across, dry lips brushing over the skin, giving Draco something to focus on. He keeps avoiding Draco's cock, much as he wants to push forward. He licks at the skin around it, rubs and pinches lightly with his fingertips, and listens with satisfaction as, slowly, Draco loosens up and lets out a soft groan.

Harry lets his hands brush the edge of Draco's balls, just enough that it might be an accident. Draco exhales roughly.

"Are you sucking my cock or not?" he asks. "Quit faffing about."

"It's called foreplay," Harry murmurs, breathing the words hotly against Draco's tender skin, then blowing cool air over the same area.

"Actual cocksucking is also considered by many to constitute forepl— _augh_. _Harry._ "

Draco's haughty commentary turns to a shocked moan when Harry licks a long, wet line all along his now-hardening cock, and cups his balls firmly at the same time.

"That's more like it," he says when he recovers, and from there Harry dives into the task with all the impatience he's been staving off since he was last allowed to get his hands and his mouth on Draco far too many days ago now. He kisses how desperately off-kilter he's been without this into Draco's skin, explains how he's missed it in long, hot strokes of the tongue that feel more articulate than words.

Harry pulls off after a bit, letting Draco's erect cock bob in front of his face. He looks up to meet Draco's eyes through his lashes, enjoying the sight of them blown wide.

"Put your hands in my hair."

Draco does.

Harry doesn't mind that Draco comes in his mouth. Draco apologises, as if Harry really would have pushed his face the whole way onto Draco's cock if he expected him to wait until Harry was fucking him before succumbing to his orgasm.

Harry just shakes his head when Draco kneels down in front of him and motions for Harry to take his pants off and let Draco suck him.

"I want to get you ready," he says, his voice coming out hoarse. "Let me get you ready?"

Draco bites his lip, but he's still much more relaxed than he was pre-blow.

"Slowly," says Draco.

"Of course." Harry can't help the smile that spreads across his face; he can't help but be excited. "I'll make it so good, you'll see. Lie back..."

"Which cleaning spell do you prefer to use?" Draco asks, and then lists several he's read about along with the pros and cons of each.

"Hey," Harry says softly. "Slow down. I've used that first one before, and it feels fine. A bit like when you breathe in after eating a peppermint. But only for a second and then the feeling's gone. Can I do it now?"

Draco nods. "You'd better."

Harry murmurs the spell, waving his hand in the interrupted arc motion that accompanies the incantation. He can do it without a wand, but that only means the words and movements are more essential, given the need for precision.

He watches as Draco shifts and pulls a face.

"That was bizarre. Now what?"

"Now I start with one finger," Harry says. "Are you ready?"

"Get on with it," Draco says—which Harry can't help but notice that while it's technically a _yes,_ it isn't a _yes I'm ready and feeling good about this_. Something about the way he says it sounds too... resigned. The way he lies back seems a bit too much like grudging submission.

Harry observes him, waits, lets out a long _hmmmm_ as he thinks. "You should turn around," he says eventually. "If you prop yourself up on your hands and knees, that would be best."

Draco complies. As his weight rests on his limbs Harry sees a faint tremor starting up again.

"I want to try something," he says. What he wants to try is to prove to Draco that being on the bottom doesn't have to correspond to _submission_ , to letting Harry take pleasure from him. "I want to make sure you enjoy this as much as possible," Harry adds, because he does, and it feels good to says so. It feels good to say it again, and then again, so Harry does.

"Alright," Draco says, looking over his shoulder. "I suppose if you're _begging_ to do whatever it is, then it must be worth a try."

"Very much worth it," Harry agrees, and then he leans in towards Draco's arse. It's all pale and muscular, if a bit bony, and so beautifully bare for Harry. "I'm going to touch you, alright?" he says, letting his breath ghost over the little puckered spot between Draco's cheeks.

"For Merlin's sake, yes."

Harry closes the last of the distance between him and Draco, parting his cheeks with urgent hands and moving his tongue in one slow, heavy drag over Draco's arsehole.

The squawk that issues from Draco's mouth is possibly the most satisfying sound Harry has ever personally provoked.

" _Fuck_ ," he cries out, and Harry flicks his tongue back over his rim a few more times. "Fuck," Draco repeats. "Are you honestly— _there_?"

"Mmmhmm," Harry hums, fastening his lips around the tight muscular ring, tensing his tongue and pressing the tip of it into Draco's hole. The litany of emphatic _fuck_ s continues as Harry delves gradually deeper into it.

"Can't believe Harry Potter's _eating my arse_ ," Draco is groaning by the time Harry pulls back. He strongly suspects that Draco is no longer applying any sort of filter to his words.

"Good?" he asks, just to hear it.

" _Yes_ ," Draco replies. "Fucking obviously it's fucking good! Salazar bloody Slytherin, I didn't even know people were actually willing to _do_ that."

"I quite enjoy it, actually," says Harry. "Same as I enjoy sucking you off. Do you believe me now, that it being me who's inside your arse doesn't mean I'm just taking what I want, or that you're getting the bad end of the deal? That there's nothing wrong with wanting it?"

"Maybe. But I've hardly had the full experience yet, have I?" Draco sounds like his brain has mostly caught up with his mouth again, but there's still a bright red flush flooding his face and patches of his back, and his arse is still clenching like it's trying to pull Harry back into it.

"I can change that," Harry offers. "Fingers now?"

"One at a time," Draco assents. "Lots of lubricant."

Harry conjures a generous amount of lube into his left palm, dips his right index finger into it and then rubs it across Draco's twitching sphincter.

"Cold," Draco says with a jerk.

"Want me to warm it?" Harry asks, as he keeps stroking his slick finger over Draco's arse and the chill fades from the lube.

Draco decides it's not worth the bother and shakes his head. Harry takes another dollop of lube on the same finger for good measure before finally pressing the tip inside. He goes slowly through the tight opening, on the alert for any signs of protest, but the only feedback Draco offers is an encouraging whine and soon Harry is through to the unbearably soft, warm space beyond.

"Oh," Draco breathes when Harry gives his fingertip an experimental wiggle. "That's... strange."

"Bad strange?"

"No. How much of your finger is that?"

The halfway knuckle of Harry's finger is just outside Draco's body.

"Well go on and put the rest in then," Draco huffs as if Harry's being parsimonious with him.

Harry retracts the first, small length of finger and then slips it in again, further this time, so that the knuckle pops through. Harry pumps the single finger in and out for a while before suggesting a second. Draco takes the second finger remarkably well—and, some minutes later, the third.

"God," he repeats under his breath as Harry slides the three fingers slowly in and out of him, crooking them when they're fully inserted, pressing against the pillowy internal walls and searching diligently for his prostate. "God, that's- it's- yes, that angle's the best. _Oh_ fuck. Oh fuck. If you keep this up I'm going to come again. And I'd much rather you actually fucked me first."

If Draco's cock is fully hard again, Harry's could probably cut diamond. It's swollen and throbbing inside his pants, and he's already decided he's going to vanish the garments rather than wasting time and effort trying to pull them off. They can be replaced; these precious seconds can't.

The pants disappear with an impatient wave of his hand, and then Harry's rubbing all the remaining lubricant over his dick, positioning the head and pushing slowly but surely inside.

Draco, Harry has discovered tonight, is not only vocal during sex but particularly vulgar in his utterances. Harry doesn't last long, _can't_ , but with a slick hand wrapped around Draco's cock Harry manages to bring him over the edge too when his orgasm hits.

Draco drops onto his stomach, arms spread out limply by his sides.

"I may never move again," he says. "You've fucked me to paralysis. What will the people say about their beloved Saviour when they find out?"

"You're going to tell them?" Harry asks, pulling out of Draco's arse and vanishing the mess when Draco makes a faint, disgusted sound.

"It was a hypothetical statement. Don't worry, I won't tell them your nefarious secret."

"What," Harry grins lazily, flopping down onto the floor beside Draco, "that I'm _that_ good in bed?"

"That your cock is like..." Draco flaps a hand as if this excuses him from having to put together the rest of the sentence. "Some kind of dark magic? I don't fucking know. It's like..."

"Paralysis is one thing, but leaving Draco Malfoy lost for words might truly be the measure of success in life. Can I kiss you?"

"If you must," says Draco, but his mouth is on Harry's before Harry even gets the chance to lean in.


	15. A New Constellation

Ron hasn't forgotten that Harry owes him an explanation sooner or later; that much is obvious from the looks he's giving Harry the following morning.

"You're acting weird again," Ron observes. "You're suspiciously happy. And you've got a little something on your neck."

Harry's hand whips up to cover the spot Ron's pointing at. He hadn't noticed any marks when he'd showered the previous night, but then it had been very late and he had been very deep in a satisfied post-coital haze.

He'd fucked Draco. And Draco had liked it, and Harry had liked it, and they'd admitted that they liked each other. These factors combined meant that there was a good chance what happened last night would happen again—and every time Harry sat next to Draco or caught his eye he'd know that Draco liked him, and that he'd squirmed under Harry's mouth and come hard with his dick inside him...

" _Harry_."

"Sorry. Er." Harry considers putting the discussion off again, but one look at his best friend and he knows it's not worth trying. "How about you sit down," he suggests, and feels cool sweat dampening his palms in anticipation.

"Sure," Ron says, and complies, sitting beside Harry on Harry's bed. It's good like this, Harry thinks—this way he might get away with not looking Ron in the eye while he forces the necessary words out of his mouth. "You know you can tell me anything. I won't get mad—it can't possibly be any worse than anything we've gone through together before, can it?"

A little laugh bursts out of Harry. "Well, no," he says with grim humour, "but I can't guarantee you won't think it is."

"Try me, alright," Ron challenges, puffing his chest up like he's ready to fight whoever says he can't handle the truth, whatever it's going to be.

Harry rubs again at the mark Ron located on his neck. "So I'm sort of shagging someone," he says. "Which I suppose you've figured out."

Ron nods. "Good to hear you say it though."

"And it's er—"

"A bloke?" Ron fills in.

"Yeah."

"You know I'd never be an arse about it."

There's a thread of uncertainty in his tone that makes Harry ache. "I haven't been keeping it from you because I thought you'd be a homophobic git," he assures him. "Not at all."

"Good," says Ron firmly. "So who is he? I'm not sure I can believe you're seeing Zabini, despite that picture of him snogging you. He may be, objectively, an annoyingly fit bloke, but I can't see you having much in common. Also I've seen him holding hands with that guy from Hufflepuff."

"It's not Zabini. It's. Ron, it's Draco."

"Malfoy?" Ron asks, like they know any other people named Draco.

"'Fraid so."

Ron winces, but there are no explosions or loud noises. No sheets of sky falling crashing through the roof above them as the world ends.

"I'd hoped my suspicions were wrong," Ron sighs. "But I'm too brilliant a future Auror for my own good. It's a burden, I tell you."

Harry goggles at him. "You knew?"

"Not for certain," Ron shrugs, "but there was some pretty compelling circumstantial evidence. You and Malfoy both leave for the loos in Hogsmeade and come back looking overly pleased with yourselves. You and Malfoy don't talk for a bit and you mope like it's fifth year all over again. You and Malfoy start talking again and suddenly you're smiling in your sleep."

"Right," Harry rubs a hand over his face. "So does everyone else know too?"

"Hermione does, but that's stating the obvious. Other than that... Pansy definitely made some suggestive comments when we were all out for drinks, after you two disappeared together. And Gin got a really smug look when I asked her how the hell you could be becoming friends with Malfoy, once. I knew what that look meant. _Eugh_."

"Are you upset?" Harry asks—because Ron telling him it'd be okay before Harry confessed to shagging Draco Malfoy was different to Ron still being fine with everything afterwards. "Are we okay?"

"I can't pretend to understand why you like him, but that's not my decision. Of course we're fine. Though I am a bit miffed you didn't tell me about any of this earlier. I know I'm with Hermione a lot these days, but we're best mates and I want to be here for you."

"I can tell you all about it now?" offers Harry.

Ron looks at him for a second, and then an expression of mild horror creeps over his face. "Nope," he decides. "I don't think I need to know any specifics. Any specifics at all would be too many."

*

Professor Ngige is pleased to hear that Harry and Draco have finally found a productive way to relate to each other. He has even less desire to hear about the details of this strategy than Harry has to relay them to him, though, so now they're left talking about other things.

There's only so long Harry can talk about the war before he can't form words anymore. On this day, it takes about two minutes to reach that point.

"How are you feeling about your study, Harry?" Ngige asks instead, quietly conjuring water into a glass and nudging it in Harry's direction.

Harry shrugs. "I don't know. Half the time I feel like it's pointless and can't be bothered; the other half I feel like I'm drowning and can't catch up. I know the people who were here last year weren't exactly getting a useful education, but I can't help feeling like... and it's bad that I feel like they've got an advantage, isn't it? Because if anything they had it harder than I did. I was mostly cold and bored and worried, while they were getting tortured and..." Harry trails off. He's talking about the war again. He doesn't want to talk about the war again. He wants to have enough else happening in his life that he can have a full conversation without it being _relevant_.

"Do you have any concerns about leaving Hogwarts?" Ngige attempts to redirect him.

Harry wants the attempt to succeed, so he tries to distil the cacophony of vague, nonverbal responses thrusting at the inside of his skull into an actual answer. He has several options: for starters there's the question of what he's going to do for a job—he might have a bank account full enough to get him by for quite a while, but he doesn't _like_ to be idle, and he can't imagine Hermione allowing him to lie in bed for the next fifty years. She might give him a week after they graduate, but then Harry's certain she'll deem it high time for the search for productive occupation to begin.

There's the question of how he'll go at helping to raise Teddy. He hasn't exactly had any role models for bringing up young children in a positive way. The Weasleys have shown him family, but the Weasley kids were all at least ten by the time he met them, and Teddy's still a baby.

There's the fact that once he's out of Hogwarts, anything he wants to do he has to do out in the whole, unrestricted world. On the few occasions where Harry stepped outside of Grimmauld Place between the war's end and the start of the new term, he'd needed his invisibility cloak to make it five steps down the street without drawing a crowd like he was magnetic somehow. And now that he's with Draco...

"I'm worried about Draco," he says. "At Hogwarts, he's protected. Out there, though..." There are an awful lot of people who'd like to hex one Malfoy or another. With Narcissa under well-warded house arrest and Lucius in Azkaban, Draco would be the easiest target by far.

Ngige nods, considering. "Are you referring to the Headmistress' enchantments over the castle," he asks, "or to public attention more generally?"

"Both, I guess? It was bad even here before McGonagall's spells, though. What's to stand between him and someone who decides he deserves another severing curse to the arm? An adult this time, with better aim and stronger magic? It only takes one person."

"Very true," Ngige says solemnly. "But that is all it takes for any of us—except perhaps for you," he gestures to where Harry's scar is mostly hidden beneath his hair. It's bigger these days, which makes it harder. It slices through his eyebrow, the fine ends of it reaching like pale veins towards his eyelid. Another fork in the lightning bolt touches the top of his nose.

"All of us," Harry says. He's a bit sick of being singled out like this. As though he can't be hurt, just because of one or two failed spells thrown his way. He bloody well _can_ be hurt—and he _was_ hurt by Voldemort's curses, even if he wasn't killed, or didn't stay dead. He wonders how many Order members would have agreed to harbour a piece of Voldemort's rotten soul in their bodies for the better part of two decades in exchange for evading a death sentence. He can't imagine many of them would. He certainly knows where Sirius would have told him to shove that idea if he'd been fool enough to suggest it, and Harry would have said the same himself to anyone who'd given him a choice in the matter.

"Of course," Ngige corrects himself, clearly seeing something of the fierceness Harry feels written on his face. "What I meant to ask was: will nothing else stand between Mr Malfoy and those who would do him harm, once you both have left school?"

"I'll be there," Harry says. "But I can't be there every minute of every day." A twist of grim amusement turns his mouth up at the edges as he imagines Draco's reaction to Harry trying to become his full-time bodyguard.

"You may take some comfort in the fact that I have been working with Mr Malfoy to bring his Defence marks up to Outstanding level, and he is very capable of defending himself."

"That's great," Harry says. "But nobody can be alert all the time. Nobody should be. It's not good for a person."

"Very true," Ngige agrees. Of course he does—hypervigilance is one of the things he himself has spoken to Harry about. His perspective on it is rather different than Mad-Eye's was. "And are you and Mr Malfoy himself the only two people in the world who might defend him if he were to be attacked?"

"No, but..." Harry knows Draco's friends wouldn't stand for it, knows that some others would intervene on principle if not out of affection for Draco and his family—but how much Slytherins are willing to risk for one another, how much bystanders are willing to risk for a man with the Dark Mark scarred into his arm, he can't be sure.

"People always find loopholes in any protection, Harry. People will always find ways to hurt each other—you have seen that this year so far. But I put it to you that they will also find ways to protect each other and the principles in which they believe."

Harry nods. He's supposed to believe this—he of all people, who was saved so impossibly from death by his mother's love for him. But he's also been to war now, also seen Sirius and Dumbledore and too many others die despite the love he and others had for them.

"People always get hurt, though. People always die."

"As is quite customary in the lives of humans."

Harry's head hurts too much for that kind of existential philosophy today.

"Alright," Ngige chuckles when he tells him so. "What else can we talk about. Quidditch?"

Harry argues passionately in favour of his favourite British teams while the Professor waxes lyrical about the superiority of the African Quidditch League, and the second half of their session passes much faster than the first.

*

Harry spends a few more early mornings in the greenhouse with Neville. He likes the way Neville's genuinely happy to see him at the breakfast table, when the hall is lit only by the torches on the walls and the stars on the swirling navy ceiling, and the air feels dormant and thin like they're standing right behind the veil to another world.

Draco joins them this time, and to Harry's surprise they mostly work in silence, gloved hands buried in the dirt. It's nice. It's _peaceful_.

*

On other mornings, Draco slides in next to him at the crowded breakfast table like he doesn't give a fuck who sees that he and Harry are close. He doesn't kiss him, or hold his hand, or anything—but then that kind of affection is something Harry likes to keep for himself; the Rita Skeeters of the world feel entitled to the private details of Harry's life, but they're not. He doesn't feel like Draco's hiding from _him_ anymore, is what's important. From him, or from the truth of what's between them. It was always going to be a work in progress.

"Give me that," Draco says, snatching the last piece of Harry's second croissant.

"Get your own," Harry snorts, but the pastry is already in Draco's mouth. He watches, a touch distractedly, while he chews it neatly and swallows, adam's apple bobbing as it goes down.

"Get a room," Ron chimes in, and then goes back to stroking his fingers tenderly up and down Hermione's arm, the hypocrite.

"Speaking of getting a room," Draco says, eyes widening.

Blaise is approaching the eighth year table, arm in arm with the seventh year Hufflepuff Harry'd seen him gazing at across the hall before.

"Jeremiah's sitting with us today," he announces to the table at large, and gestures to the boy accompanying him as one might to a precious artwork while conducting a gallery tour. Up close, Harry can see that Jeremiah does kind of look like he belongs in an oil painting. One with soft brushstrokes and pastel colours, with fruits and flowers arranged around him. His olive skin is soft and smooth, his chubby face is dimpled deeply as he casts a shy yet blinding smile around the room. His hair is brown and curls in the tiniest, softest ringlets Harry's seen on anyone.

"So you're the man who kissed my boyfriend," he says, when he notices Harry. Unlike the rest of him, there's something sharp in Jeremiah's eyes, something shrewd.

"Sorry," he says, awkwardly, before he's quite managed to swallow his mouthful of marmalade toast. "It didn't—"

"I'm kidding," Jeremiah laughs, and suddenly he's entirely cherubic again, and Harry wouldn't believe anyone could find him intimidating if he hadn't just done so himself. "He wouldn't have done anything that wasn't fine with me. Jeremiah Pinckney-James," he extends a hand, which Harry takes, conscious of the crumbs and butter stuck to his fingers.

"Harry Potter," he says, and is pleased when Jeremiah nods as though Harry's self-introduction is meaningful rather than redundant.

"Pleasure. And any friend of Blaise's is a friend of mine."

" _Pinckney_?" Draco says, as the same time as Hermione gasps, "Are you—"

"Yes, he's my great grandfather," Jeremiah nods, and Harry doesn't know what they're talking about, but he feels pretty safe assuming from the look on Draco's face (and Blaise's shit-eating grin) that Jeremiah's name is important somehow. "I used my mother's name up until recently—Father's an anxious sort. Wasn't sure You-Know-Who was really gone and wanted it to be easier on me, growing up—so you'd only have heard of me as Jeremiah James. But after the war I thought... why hide? If I'm the great grandson of the first Muggleborn Minister for Magic then why not get with the times and celebrate it?"

"Does your great grandfather accept letters from fa- um, interested parties?" Hermione asks urgently. "For research?"

Jeremiah smiles at her. "I can certainly ask him. Something tells me he'd be quite interested in hearing from _the_ Hermione Granger. Overachieving Muggleborn witches and wizards do seem to like comparing notes."

Harry can hear Hermione's breath coming quickly, almost like she's panicking from the excitement of this new connection to a person Harry's never heard of before. That said, the first Muggleborn Minister for Magic does sound like someone Binns would have mentioned. Maybe this one is his fault for so rarely managing to pay attention in History of Magic.

Neville and Hannah scoot over to open up space for Blaise and Jeremiah.

"His family owns half of Diagon Alley," Draco whispers in Harry's ear once the commotion of their arrival dies down and the eighth years return to their breakfasts. "More than half, if you calculate it according to the rent prices. They own the _nice_ end."

Harry turns to Draco, a suspicion forming. "Is he richer than you?"

He knows he's right when Draco huffs and declines to answer.

*

Jeremiah's been a fixture at their table for a few days when he joins them at the Hufflepuff vs Ravenclaw Quidditch match.

He has to run to a study session as soon as the last goal has been scored, and leans down to give Blaise quite a spectacular snog goodbye before shuffling past the line of eighth years sitting side by side in the stands. There are a few wolf-whistles from where Seamus and Dean are, a typically long-suffering groan from Ron about public indecency, and there's a distinct pink flush creeping up Draco's neck as he watches, oddly transfixed. Harry knows it's not because he's attracted to either of the boys—he can't help but watch himself and it's not because he's envious of either one of them getting to kiss the other. It's something about the shamelessness of it all. They're not doing it for the crowd, but they don't care who's watching them either. It makes Harry start to wonder whether maybe it'd be worth the attention, worth the gossip columns, to just kiss Draco wherever and whenever he felt like it. To not have to pay any attention to people like Rita Skeeter, rather than constantly planning his life to avoid giving her access to it.

"Can I?" Draco asks under his breath, and Harry follows his eyes down to the narrow gap between their thighs where Draco's hand is hovering just above his.

"Yeah," he says, trying not to look so outwardly pleased about it that Draco will rescind the offer for fear of being noticed. Harry turns his palm up and squeezes tightly when Draco pressed down into it.

Harry is jolted violently out of the moment when a voice yells: "Piss off!" just as the cheering has subsided.

"You piss off!" Seamus shouts back, so fast Harry's sure it's a knee-jerk reaction.

"Bloody queers!"

Harry sees Seamus stiffen at that, along with most of the people around them, as they realise it isn't just banter. Harry stands up to see who the comment has come from, craning his neck until he makes out a red face a few rows higher up.

It's Volke.

"You'd better not be serious," Seamus calls out after a moment of consideration. He stands up too, to face the guy he's yelling at, hands curling into fists like he's prepared for a brawl. Harry's glad this confrontation is happening here instead of at the Broomsticks or the Leaky.

"Why not? They're rubbing it in everyone's faces. Can't keep it in their pants. Let them get away with it and the next thing they'll be feeling me up in the locker rooms after Quidditch practice. You'd better watch your arse too!"

Seamus laughs, loudly and mockingly. "I'm one of the bloody queers you fuckin' gobshite. And you'll be pleased to know I have no interest in your saggy bum or any of the ugly mess attached to it."

"Merlin, how many of you perverts are there? It's spreading, I tell you."

Too many people move at once for Harry to keep track of it all, but then next thing he knows he's out of his seat entirely, caught up in a crowd all trying to push through the packed stands without tripping. Blaise is closer to the end of the row and is first on the way to Volke. They come face to face on the narrow stairs.

"Want to know how I'd teach you a fucking lesson if we were at Hogsmeade right now?" Volke snarls.

"Are you talking dirty to me right now?" Blaise smirks.

Volke's quick on the draw and Harry's scream dies in his throat as he _feels_ the spell Volke casts, rather than hears it over the din. The flash of green light so bright it leaves streaks behind his eyes. The smell of it in the air, cold and burnt at once, the visceral reminder of everything bad. The lightning crack and the scream that follows behind it as surely as thunder. Blaise's scream is different to the screams of those around him. It doesn't go on long, but the horrible scraping shards that the desperate sound of it drives into Harry's spine linger. Blaise goes down on the steps and Harry spots a flash of white-blond hair moving frantically out into the open to catch him before he can hit his head on any sharp edges.

"Oh god, oh god," Hermione's chanting beside him, shoving through the crowd as forcefully as Harry is—an extremely difficult task when the protective layers over each individual around them push them back as hard as they push forward. "The spells! They're too diffuse to repel Unforgivables! I didn't think anyone would actually _cast_ —"

Volke's previously pink face has gone ashen, but the set of his mouth is still determined. He hadn't meant for the _Crucio_ to actually hit its target, hadn't thought it _could_ —but now that it has he seems to have decided owning it is preferable to admitting he's wrong and begging forgiveness.

Harry can see the teachers over on the far side of the stands leaping to act, but it's a long way across the pitch.

He doesn't know whether, when Volke raises his wand to cast again, he'll actually produce another Cruciatus—Volke himself doesn't seem altogether sure, which is a good sign, given the intent required for an Unforgivable to work. He's not going to risk it though.

"Expelliarmus!" he shouts, but someone pushes in front of him at the wrong moment and he ends up with the wand of a startled young Ravenclaw girl by mistake. "Sorry," he says, reaching out to pass it back.

"We've got to get closer," Hermione says. "Give me your wrist."

Harry extends his arm to her and she grips it tightly, pulling him along just behind her. He can see better now, but they're still caught behind a wall of tightly packed bodies. It's torture—different than a _Crucio_ , but as bad if you ask Harry—watching as Draco shoves a whimpering Blaise behind him and faces Volke.

"Malfoy," Volke sneers. "Can't say I'm surprised that you're in on this. Every time you're willing to stand up for a cause it's the wrong one." Volke shows off the unmarred skin of his own wrists in illustration. "Hasn't everybody learned by now that when a Malfoy backs your cause it's time to abandon ship?"

"Righteous words from a boy who cast the torture curse about thirty seconds ago," Draco replies. He sounds hoarse, like he's been shouting a lot already. Harry wants to believe it's just from cheering on the Quidditch teams, but... it sounds like it hurts. "I'm sure you'll enjoy Azkaban, Volke."

"It was provoked," Volke tries. "And how was I to know I could actually beat McGonagall's spell?"

"It'll actually be a very interesting case," Hermione commentates, unable to help herself. "Usually the intention behind an Unforgivable curse is confirmed by the fact it succeeds—but here..."

"There's a gap there!" Ron has managed to elbow his way up to them from where he was sitting with Ginny, Luna and Pansy and some of Gin and Luna's Quidditch-mad seventh-year friends. "Hermione, go," he urges.

"I doubt anyone would bother trying me for cursing _you_ ," Volke is looking at Draco more speculatively now.

"You don't know shit," Seamus is keeping his distance now, but apparently his desire to shout at dickheads can't be suppressed by the threat of magical torture. "If you hurt him Harry Potter'll have the Ministry bring him your ugly head on a platter!"

"Ah, yes. That's right—you're shagging Harry Potter now, aren't you Zabini! As well as this nancy." Harry can't see where Jeremiah is, but Volke's eyes cut into the edge of the crowd meaningfully. "Bit selfish, isn't it? Anyway, I'm not sure a bugger is enough to get him angry about a bit of retribution for your Death Eater mate."

"You know nothing about Harry Potter's stubbornness if you really think that," Draco informs him fiercely, and Seamus hollers in support. Harry wants to voice something too, but the exchange is strange enough that he has no idea what to try and add. He wonders whether this was what it was like last year, when everyone here was fighting and just _hoping_ that Harry was pulling through for them wherever he was. "But more to the point, he's not shagging Potter!"

"How would you know?" Volke retorts. "You can't know what they get up to!"

"I can, in fact. I know _he's_ not shagging Harry," Draco takes another step closer to Volke, so that Volke's wand is nearly prodding at his chest, and Harry's heart is nearly grazing his back teeth, "because _I_ am. And I don't share, or leave my partners wanting. You colossal _twat_."

Volke shouts the incantation for a nasty stinging hex, and watches with fascination as it hits Draco's torso.

"I guess I can do whatever I want now," he tells the crowd. "The shields can't stop me."

Finally, _finally_ Harry, Ron and Hermione manage to push forwards, but it's because all the remaining students are moving, surrounding Blaise and Draco: a human barrier, where the magical one has failed. The sight of it makes Harry's breath catch.

"If he's torn the shields then we _all_ can cast on each other again," Hermione yells, "if we cast strongly enough!"

A volley of spells—mostly bat-bogey hexes, Harry notices—are launched at Volke within seconds. Many of them reflect, but a couple make their way through. It's bizarre, the way that Harry can see the light hitting the barrier and either sliding off or squeezing determinedly through.

He wrestles his way further towards Draco, pausing only to cast as broad and strong a _Protego_ as he can to cover the front line of students. It's a bit higher than it would ideally be, given that he has to cast from overhead, but at least their faces will be well protected. They're not doing too badly for themselves either; these are young people who've been to war, after all. They know how to fight, even if they shouldn't have to.

Luna casts an extremely competent _Confundus_ , Ginny shows all the other bat-bogeyers how it's done, one of Volke's own friends seems to decide he's no longer worth following and gets a body-bind through at close range. And then Professor McGonagall, Professor Ngige and Madam Pomfrey are storming up the stands with magic buzzing heatedly around them, and it's all over, thank Merlin.

When he arrives next to Draco at last, he adds to the cooling and healing charms Draco's casting frantically on his own chest.

"Fucking itchy," he's groaning.

"Stinging hexes are nasty bastards," Harry agrees.

"Not as nasty as what he threw at Blaise. I'm surprised he had it in him." Draco sounds irate, as if only the urgency of alleviating the stinging is diluting his desire to go for Volke's throat.

"And you stood against him even when you knew what he could do," Harry marvels. He wants desperately to be able to lay a hand on Draco's shoulder, to connect them with a solid grip. It feels like sacks of sand are slung over his arm, or like he's slept on it and it's fallen asleep, but he holds it there against the force that wants to repel him. He holds, and holds, and grits his teeth, and eventually it parts and his hand claps down on Draco's bicep.

"I've decided that I no longer suffer fools," Draco says dismissively. "Fools other than you."

"It was more than that," Harry disagrees. "I'm sorry to tell you this, but you were pretty heroic. Any Gryffindor worth his salt would be proud."

"Take that _back_ ," Draco affects outrage, but Harry can see the smile on his face. He mirrors it, and Draco rolls his eyes. "I'm just happy because the stinging has stopped."

"Sure," Harry keeps grinning at him. "Sure."

" _You_ were positively useless," Draco adds, a little bit smugly. "Saviour of the wizarding world stuck in the crowd while Draco Malfoy risks his life... oh for fuck's sake don't look at me like that, you don't have to save everyone all the time."

"Oi, Malfoy," Ron sidles up to the two of them. "That was sort of brilliant." Ron looks like this costs him something to say, but he's determined to say it anyway, and Harry loves him for it.

"Thank you, Weasley."

"You should probably call me Ron, if you're shagging my best friend," Ron shrugs.

"Right. Ro- Ronald," Draco struggles. "That will have to do for now."

"It's a start."

Madam Pomfrey wants to take Draco away to check him over for lasting injuries, and Professor Ngige is rounding up the rest of them to take statements and voluntary pensieve memories, to help the Aurors who McGonagall has already called.

"Get this over with and you can go to him then," Hermione whispers.

"I know," says Harry, though that doesn't make it any easier to sit and wait, and try to put what's just happened into words on a piece of parchment.

"He's going to be fine," she adds. Her parchment is already covered in what must be a few hundred words, written very small in anticipation of a typically detailed account. "We all are, you know."

"I know," Harry tells her, and is pleasantly surprised to find that he really does.

**Author's Note:**

> This is the kind of prompt that makes you think about where consent starts and ends. Restricting physical contact according to consent felt like a good opportunity to look into the elements of consent that go beyond agreeing to a physical touch. Communication is paramount every step of the way, beyond a simple yes or no at the outset; people's consent can be violated without them being touched; you can't mute people entirely to prevent them from saying awful things; issues like revenge porn remain legally very complicated. In light of these complexities, this story kept returning to social refusal to allow each other to be hurt as the first and most powerful step in spreading respect for consent, agency, autonomy.


End file.
